


Astrometric Binaries

by pontmercy44



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Exile, Hate Sex, LITERALLY, Sexually Repressed, They have HISTORY, begrudging affection, lonely planet, they also have issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-01-22 00:47:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12469764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pontmercy44/pseuds/pontmercy44
Summary: Some stars, if observed repeatedly over time, show a perturbation or wobble in their proper motion. If this is a periodic occurrence we can infer that the perturbation occurs due to the gravitational influence of an unseen companion.***She’d fought tooth and nail to deny him his dying wish – just to die, rather than to rot away in a cell, alone, cut off from the Force, haunted by ghosts, eaten alive with guilt, and, judging from her apparent predilection for sadism, tormented by her.He’d underestimated the scavenger girl.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This my *first ever* canon-compliant story. I have high hopes for TLJ, but I think my babies are going to have a love-hate relationship at best. Bring on the hate sex and reluctant friendship, I say.

“You’ll be grateful to know it’ll be the firing squad.”

The girl leaned against the transparisteel that bisected his green-tinged duracrete block cell. It was cold meters and meters below the base. The cell was built to keep him in, not to keep the damp and the chill out. Her arms were crossed imperiously over her chest, but that might have just been an effort to keep warm. She was a creature of the desert.

“Thank you.” Kylo said, stiffly. His voice cracked. She likely thought it was because he was devastated by this revelation. It wasn’t. It was because she was wearing a thin, sleeveless tunic and he was wondering whether he could see exactly how cold she was if she just uncrossed her arms.

It was an unbidden, inappropriate thought. He shouldn’t have wasted a moment on it when he had so few moments left. He had poor judgment when it came to her.

Kylo didn’t move from where he sat on his narrow slab of a bench, slumped against the wall. He could feel a trickle of moisture run down his spine. It might have seeped in through the walls; it might have seeped out of his skin. He was sweating. His heart was beating very quickly under the thin white shirt that didn’t keep him warm at night – or rather, when he slept. He had no concept of time in his deeply-buried cell.

Rey’s eyes narrowed, as if she could not _stand_ for him to think she bore him anything but ill will. She must, though. She was there. She didn’t pity him, but she felt… _guilty._ He'd delivered her from his same fate; she'd delivered him to the wolves of the Resistance, in blind faith that they would be as idealistic as she was.

Half-facetiously, she said, “I would have picked something slower.”

He heard the lie in her voice. She would have spared his life. _A life for a life_. That would be her credo, adopted on a harsh, sandy planet.

Kylo tilted his head back against the hard wall. He studied the green, faintly-flickering light above him. The sunlight would hurt his eyes when he went to the firing squad – unless he went to his death by night.

 No, he was being made an example of. He would not die under cover of darkness. The tribunal of generals and admirals who had convicted him of seventy-two – he’d counted – war crimes were not ashamed of executing him. They were proud, as they should be.

He’d pled guilty to seventy-one charges. There was only one to which he had pled not guilty. He had not killed General Organa. He had not killed his mother.

Absently, he said, “I’m not thanking you because it’ll be quick.”

The girl’s throat bobbed. It was the first physical indication that she had not come down to his cell to gloat. She was affected by this. Her voice was distorted through the transparisteel. “Do you want to die?”

Kylo exhaled through his nose. “Yes.”

He could tell he’d infuriated her, inexplicably. He wondered if, moreso than she wanted him to die, she wanted him to _suffer._ If she wanted him to have everything taken from him, even the sweet peace of death.

“Will you be there?”  He asked, hating how young he sounded. He didn’t need her to bear witness. He didn’t need anyone to bear witness.

He could have died alone in his cell, hung by a makeshift rope made out of his shapeless tunic and pants. The fabric of them might not have been too weak to support his neck. In any case, could have found some other means to kill himself, despite the drugs that were heavy in his veins, dulling his Force sensitivity. He hadn’t. He had some sort of noble notion that suicide was the coward’s choice when execution was imminent.

Rey’s breath fogged the transparisteel. She flattened her palm against it. Her hand looked very small, just as it had in his. “Do you want me to be there?”

Ben picked at a loose thread on his white pants. They were turning greyish, after two weeks without washing. They stunk. He stunk. He was absurdly glad that he and the girl were kept apart by a sheet of transparisteel. He shouldn’t have cared what she thought of him – he knew what she thought of him. She thought he was a monster. What did it matter if she thought he was a monster who stunk?

Still, they had had an uneasy alliance once – uneasy on her part, whole-hearted on his. “Stand where I can see you.”

Rey made a soft, scoffing noise. Kylo might have mistaken it for a laugh in any other context. It gurgled wetly at the end.

He knew he should have lied and said that he didn’t want her there. Then, maybe she would come.

***

They marched him out of his cell at dawn. Kylo felt oddly like an initiate into some sort of cult. He should not have been wearing all white. White was the color of purity. He was hardly a sacrificial lamb.

In white, he could be seen from meters and meters away. He shone like a beacon among the uniformed military officers who took it upon themselves to make sure that the deed was done. It wouldn’t be broadcast on the holonet. They would the sole witnesses to his death. They would assure the galaxy, after it was done, that it was a little safer.

The firing squad – all enlisted men, all nervous – wore black. They lacked military discipline. Kylo didn’t. He stood, straight-backed, against the dinged-up wall. The blasters that missed him – and perhaps those than pierced him, too, if they did so with enough force – would chip the wall even further. The riddled durasteel and the bloodstains would be all the evidence left by nightfall. They would cremate his body, surely. Not on a reverent funeral pyre, but in a discrete oven.

Rey was wearing nothing so conspicuous as he was.  She was not wearing white, but she was white-faced. She was standing somewhere she _thought_ he wouldn’t see her.

Kylo almost smiled. She was so stubborn. Contrary, even. He had asked her to stand where he could see her. Spitefully, she was doing just the opposite.

He would have what he wanted in the end, though. He would die here. He was intimately aware of the harsh breathing and sweaty fingers of every person on the death squad. They were so young and green. Some of them had never taken a life before.

 _It is easy_ , he wanted to tell them. He closed his eyes.

“At ease.” A feminine voice, heavy with authority, broke the agonizing silence. Kylo opened his eyes, half-expecting to see his mother.

General Holdo, who had replaced General Organa – usurped her, in Kylo’s mind – gave him a long, calculating look. She nodded, graciously, to the firing squad.

“Kylo Ren.” She began, formally. A camera droid buzzed and hovered in the air near her. A little red light blinked on its flank. The droid was recording. It was then that Kylo understood this was show of mercy. His execution would never have been broadcast.

The fledgling government of the Third Republic could not be seen to be bloodthirsty. It aspired to be merciful. Evolved. Enlightened.

Holdo lifted her chin, imperiously. She was not speaking to _him_. She was speaking to the galaxy. “By special intervention of Master Skywalker, your sentence has been – ”

Kylo lunged for the soldier nearest him and wrested the blaster from his grip. Even dulled by drugs, he had brute strength. Once the weapon was in his grasp, he backed towards the wall like a trapped animal.

Chaos erupted. The camera droid buzzed and twirled frantically, trying to record it all. Eleven blasters were trained on Kylo; their handlers looked, horrified, between General Holdo and the prisoner. The officers surrounding them fumbled for their sidearms. Rey broke through the crowd, her hand outstretched.

Kylo half-expected General Holdo to give the order to fire. He was surprised no one had fired on him yet, out of a sense of self-preservation or panic. If his would-be executioners thought he was making an attempt at freedom or a last stand, they were sorely mistaken.

Kylo lifted the blaster to his temple and pressed his longest finger to the cold trigger.

“ _No_!” Rey sounded angry, rather than frantic. Her fingers clawed at the air impotently. The Force rippled around Kylo; the trigger didn’t budge.

Kylo bared his teeth at her before the death squad was on him and he was subdued. She watched, nostrils flaring, as General Holdo smoothed her brilliantly-hued hair and diaphanous dress and began to speak again.

“ _Your sentence_ has been commuted.” The General took a deep breath. She lacked the natural poise her predecessor had had – and, apparently, the nerve to kill. Leia Organa hadn’t lacked that. “The New Republic has cast off the brutal vestiges of tyranny.”

Kylo heaved under the grip of six men. He tasted blood in his mouth. The blaster was just out of his reach.

After a suitably self-satisfied and effusive speech from the new _de facto_ leader of the Third Republic – there hadn’t been any elections yet, and half of the politicians were dead – Rey stomped over and kicked the blaster away. The tip of her boot nearly touched his chin.

Rey looked like she wanted to kick him.

It had been _her_ special intercession that had saved him – twice – not Luke Skywalker’s. She’d not only jammed the commandeered blaster’s trigger; she’d pled for mercy on his behalf. She’d fought tooth and nail to deny him his dying wish – just to _die_ , rather than to rot away in a cell, alone, cut off from the Force, haunted by ghosts, eaten alive with guilt, and, judging from her apparent predilection for _sadism_ , tormented by _her._

He’d underestimated the scavenger girl.


	2. Soap

Cygnus II was a half of a binary system. It spun around and around with Cygnus I. They were caught in each other’s gravity, rotating around the same barycenter. Cygnus I was larger and hotter; its surface was ruddy. Cygnus II was its smaller, cooler companion. It floated like a dull gray marble in the black velvet jewel-box of deep space.

Eventually, one planet might destroy the other through mass accretion. Kylo hoped it was Cygnus II that was destroyed. The alternative was that the planets could lose gravitational contact with each other and drift apart, evolving separately.

Cygnus II would be an even lonelier piece of rock if _that_ happened.

 _Piece of rock_ was an apt description. Thick spires of rock rose from hundreds of flat glassy rivers and floodplains, rivaling the towering cliffs of numerous broad, long mountains. It was too far from any star to ever be bright or lush. The steep-sided mountains plateaued, just as the rock spires did. Their flat tops were covered in great swaths of heather and harsh grass. The atmosphere of the tiny planet was hazy and purplish gray at best – it was eternally twilight on Cygnus II.

Set atop one plateau was a perfectly round duracrete landing pad. The bulky, heavily armed transport ship seemed out of place among the swirling, silvery predatory birds as it settled onto the pad.

The transport’s cargo crew was automated. Kylo was glad; he did not have to stoically meet any resentful glares from the brave crew members or endure the fear of the less brave ones. He _did_ have to sit in the hold for seventeen hours and listen to a cheerful navigation droid garble on and _on_.

His forearm throbbed. He had a little computer chip implanted in it that morning, just an inch from his pulse. His handcuffs irritated the sensitive incision. That tiny chip would monitored his vitals and location.

Lifting his bound hands, Kylo stroked his greasy, long hair off of the side of his face. There was a second chip. It throbbed under his temple. This one was a miniature, elegant explosive device. If the chip in his left arm indicated that he had escaped his rockbound, highland prison, the chip in his temple would detonate somewhere near his cerebellum, killing him instantly.

If the chip in his left arm indicated his heart had stopped beating for some other reason, there would be no intervention. There would likely be celebration.

Perhaps Kylo’s head only throbbed because of the droid’s incessant rambling. It had been programmed – perhaps as a form of torture – to know everything there was to know about Cygnus II. That wasn’t much.

It was an accident of fate that anyone had bothered to name Cygnus II at all. It was unremarkable and isolated. It had never supported sentient life, human or otherwise. But a century ago, intrepid miners had struck figurative gold on its surface. Balosar miners had carved a precarious network into the bluffs of the planet’s rocky platueas. They’d looted Cygnus II of its precious thorilide to sell blaster cannons to the old Empire and left her barren. The mines and cliff dwellings had long since been abandoned. Cygnus II was, once again, like its sister planet, uninhabited.

Or rather, it was _supposed_ to be uninhabited.

 _She_ was on-world. She emerged from the cockpit of the transport, strode down the ramp after him, and perched on the lip of the landing pad, wrapped in a too-large cloak and wearing a scowl. Wispy pieces of her dark hair whipped around her face.

The security droids hadn’t removed his cuffs. He stood with his hands bound in front of him at the bottom of the transport’s ramp. The wind smelled salty. It burned in Kylo’s lungs. The air was almost _wet_.

The mist had left salty film on Rey’s face. Kylo wanted to lick it off of her cheeks. He wanted to spit at her. He forced himself not to flinch when she lit the ice-blue saber she’d stolen from him and stalked towards him.

 Perhaps she’d wanted to save him for herself.

She cut off his plasma cuffs with a deft flick, only burning the little hairs on his arms a little. Rubbing his forearms, Kylo said, petulantly, “I thought you were going to kill me.”

“On the contrary.” Rey’s gazed flickered over him. Her jaw clenched. “I’m here to make sure you don’t end up dead.”

Kylo’s face twisted for a moment. He almost laughed. “Are you going to force-feed me? Stop me from jumping off a cliff or drowning myself?”

From the pink that rose on the girl’s cheeks, it was obvious she wasn’t quite as creative as he was when it came to suicide. She’d positioned herself between him and the transport from whence they’d come. Her hand was on still on the handle of her stolen saber.

Kylo hadn’t been dosed in seventeen hours. He could feel her unease in the Force. It had crept back to him like a kicked pet as the drug wore off. It lapped at his ankles and crawled up the tree trunks of his legs.

Even if he had _still_ been drugged, he would have been able to read her body language easily. She was afraid that he would try to overpower the crew, steal the transport, and go off-world. She was afraid that he didn’t know about the tiny explosive device in his temple, or worse, that he _did_ and he would purposely detonate it.

The girl was foolish if she thought she could save him from himself. He had no intention of surviving his term of solitary confinement – or rather, he did. It was life sentence. It would be a short one.

“Don’t you dare.” Her temper flared. It was hot and glorious in the Force. “Don’t you dare kill yourself. I didn’t save your life _three kriffing times_ so you could kill yourself.”

Kylo narrowed his eyes at the girl. “Twice.”

Rey squared her shoulders. “Three times.”

She looked at him as if he ought to know what she was talking about. It took him a moment to realize that she was inviting him where he was once an invader. Her memories were open to him.

He resisted the urge to rifle deep in them. He wanted to see her memories of their rivalry and reconciliation. He wanted to know if she’d ever trusted him or thought of him as a man, not a monster.

But he didn’t think he’d like what he saw if he pried. He only looked at what she wanted him to see.

Rey had heard whispers of an assassination attempt. She’d examined the crew manifesto. One by one, she’d cornered the men and women who had volunteered to make the pilgrimage to Cygnus II. She’d seen the plot in the co-pilot’s mind, trapping him by the belly of the freighter and probing none-too-gently through his thoughts. Enraged by what she’d seen, she’d slammed his head back against the side of the ship, knocking him out.

She hadn’t recognized herself afterwards. She’d seen something of _Kylo Ren_ in herself.

Fierce-browed and daring anyone to challenge her, she’d piloted the transport herself. She’d delivered him safely to this desolate planet where he would wither away. She’d damned him to a slow death instead of a quick one.

“No one else would have stopped him.” Rey shouted after him, when he stomped towards the cliff edge, overcome with anger and resentment. “They would have let you die.”

“ _You_ should have let me die!” Kylo roared, turning on his heel.

Rey’s face was drawn and tight. “You didn’t let _me_ die.”

Kylo exhaled through his teeth. His belly twisted almost painfully. He almost told her that his mercy had been a mistake. He should have let her die. He couldn’t.

Instead, he said, in a low voice, “You’ve repaid your _life debt_ , scavenger. Now go.”

Rey’s little fists clenched. She looked angry, almost as if she had expected him to be grateful. When he turned away, she yelled after him. Her voice was high-pitched with some emotion he couldn’t place. “You’d better still be alive when I come back in two cycles, nerf herder!”

***

It was very dark in the belly of the cliffside. Little pricks of light hung like stars at the ends of tunnels that ended in nothingness, meters and meters above the river below. Kylo watched the sun set and rise from one such perch every morning – or rather, he watched the hazy atmosphere turn from deep purple to pale lavender. The sun never shone in earnest on Cygnus II.

Once it was as light as it would ever be, Kylo flipped a heavy, industrial switch at the base of the ladder he used to shimmy from the plateau down to his prison. A solar generator grumbled to life. Dim inset lights illuminated the old mine shaft.

It looked more like a tomb than a prison. That seemed appropriate. He would die here, telling time by the color of the haze, rehydrating packets of bland veg-meat for breakfast when dawn broke and rehydrating – what a surprise, he thought, grimly – more veg-meat for dinner when dusk fell.

His bunk was a hard shelf. His fresher was primitive at best – just a tank and a spigot that wasn’t quite high enough. The water was cold and salty. It left a film on his skin. He could never be clean, either metaphorically or physically.

His faraway wardens had deemed fit to only give him what was absolutely necessary to survive – potable water, a solar cooker, dehydrated rations. Waterproofed clothes and a scratchy blanket. Bacta patches and antiseptic and antidiarrheal pills. A primitive toolkit – nothing that could be used to disable a sentry droid or build a weapon.

There was nothing that tasted good. Nothing that felt soft. Nothing that would occupy his mind or hands. No way to tell time. No one to talk to, not even a droid with whom he could communicate in binary. He was supposed to survive, but he was supposed to suffer.

Every day, at what he estimated to be high noon – the brightest time of the day of Cygnus II – Kylo climbed the rusty ladder and emerged from the abandoned mine. He stood on the landing pad, in its very center. He didn’t go near the cliff edge. If he did, he might break an unspoken promise he’d made to Rey. He had to be alive when she came back in two cycles.

The center of the landing pad was the center of his universe. Gravity would inevitably draw _her_ back to that spot. He told himself that the laws of physics demanded she come back every time he lost count of the days and wondered whether she was gone forever.

_Two cycles._

***

Kylo wondered whether the Rey was a mirage when she clambered out of the cockpit of an X-wing. He had indulged in plenty of fantasies during the first two cycles of his sentence. Some of them were filthy in nature. Some of them were romantic. He wasn’t embarrassed by his fantasies in which he threw her onto the ground and had his way with her; he _was_ embarrassed by the ones in which she threw herself into his arms and kissed him.

This was not a fantasy. In no fantasy of his would Rey scowl and say, “You haven’t been eating.”

Kylo looked at the backs of his hands. They were bony. He didn’t bother to deny it. “Surviving on only veg meat is a fate worse than death.”

Rey’s cheeks darkened, as if she was embarrassed by something. Kylo recalled, suddenly, that she’d sustained herself for years on the veg-meat. He’d seen as much in her unguarded, pathetic memories. She’d nearly starved to death, so she relished the stuff. That was the difference between them – she was grateful to be alive against all odds. He wasn’t.

If she was grateful that _he_ was still alive, she didn’t seem to want to let on. “You haven’t been bathing, either.”

Kylo shrugged. He pretended that he wasn’t self-conscious of his ratty tunic and filthy leggings, or his lank, long hair and scratchy beard. “There’s no one here to smell me.”

Rey fished around in the pouch she wore slung around her hips. She withdrew from it a milky purple bar of soap, wrapped and labelled innocuously. It was the same color as the sky on Cygnus II.

Her voice hitched a little, as if she was embarrassed. “I’m here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben needs a bath and a shave and a haircut and maybe someone to give him all of those things.


	3. Soup

“I won’t look.” Rey crossed her arms over her chest. She looked wan in the solar-powered light of his cavernous prison cell. If _she_ looked sickly in that light, he shuddered to think how _he_ looked.

“I don’t care.” Kylo lied. He wouldn’t have a few standard cycles ago. He’d always been pale, but he’d been thick with muscle then, and he’d worn his patchwork of scars with pride. He’d been a _warrior_.

The fresher wasn’t tucked away in a stall. There was no need for modesty in solitary confinement. The duracrete floor sloped into a drain in one corner of the long, angular bunker. He faced the rock-hewn wall, exposing the planes of his shoulder-blades and his narrow hips to her, rather than his flattened-out belly and groin. His shirt hit the dusty floor, and he heard Rey suck in a deep, surprised breath. He knew she could see his spine and ribs through his skin.

As Kylo stripped off his trousers and boots, he felt a flush climb the exposed ladder of his sternum and the dips of his collarbone. His muscles had atrophied because he spent the lion’s share of his time lying in his hard, makeshift bunk, staring at the fathomless black ceiling.  The thin coating of fat that used to cover his bygone muscles had melted away because he couldn’t _stand_ dehydrated veg-meat. He wasn’t starving yet, so he wasn’t desperate enough to eat more than a few bites a day.

He could feel her gaze burning his naked back. In any other world he would have preened. In this world – _on_ this world, rather – he felt a masochist desire to show her just how far he’d fallen. He wanted to punish her.

He turned around, dropping the last of his clothes to the floor. Rey’s eyes flickered across his chest – to each nipple – and then down the trail of hair that bisected his abdomen. Then, she seemed to not know where to look. She wandered around the old mine shaft, her eyes darting from his little water boiler to his crates of rations, to his bunk.

Kylo was as tall and broad-shouldered as ever, but instead of looking like a hulking mountain, he looked like an odd, gangly creature with a wide wing-span. He hadn’t looked like that since he’d been a boy on the cusp of manhood. He hadn’t been self-conscious about his body since he’d been a man.

Her eyes traced the patterns he made as he rubbed the bar of milky purple soap onto his chest. He dragged the bar down his belly, ticklishy. _One_ thing hadn’t shrunk in two cycles, although the cold water didn’t show it to its best advantage. It was half-hard despite the chill. When his hand went to cup and clean it, color rose in the girl’s cheeks.

“You said you wouldn’t look.” Kylo lifted his arms above his head and rubbed the lather across his long, greasy hair. He felt like a creature exposing its soft underbelly to a predator.

“You said you didn’t care.” Rey swallowed hard, her lips twisting between her teeth. Her gaze wasn’t tracking his methodical, rough scrubbing now. It was still between his hip-bones.

Kylo turned away, soaping up his biceps. Every trace of the drugs had drained from his veins; he felt the Force acutely. He’d had nothing to feel in it for weeks. Now he could feel her – her morbid curiosity, and her sexual curiosity – and it roused equal parts anger and desire in him. He didn’t want her to see him get hard.

“You _do_ care.” Rey sounded inexplicably relieved. “I just wanted you to care about something.”

Kylo closed his eyes and rubbed soap over his face. It got in his eyes and stung. The sting felt good. He felt clean.

***

Eventually, he couldn’t withstand the icy water. He reached for the lever and yanked it. The water abruptly stopped trickling over his shoulders. He didn’t have luxuriess like towels and sonic dryers. Shuddering, he turned and reached for his clothes.

Rey was holding them. “You can’t put these back on. They’re filthy.”

Kylo shifted, awkwardly. He folded his hands over his crotch. Now that he wasn’t washing himself, he didn’t have any clinical reason to be naked in front of her. “I don’t have anything clean.”

Rey stripped his blanket off of his bunk – his only blanket –  and held it out, her hands outstretched. It acted as a barrier between them as she approached him. Kylo moved his hands, unsure of what to do with them.

The tips of her boots touched his bare feet. She pressed the stretched-out blanket against him, awkwardly. It soaked up the moisture on the front of his body. They stood there for a moment with just the thin, scratchy material between their bodies.

Kylo’s cock twitched against the fabric, prodding through it in search of something warm and wet, rather than his cold and wet thighs and pubic hair. She felt it. Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks for a moment, and then her arms folded around him, awkwardly. She had to stand on her tip-toes to wrap the blanket around his torso.

“Rey.” He said her name without thinking. He said it like a warning. She was acting as if she wasn’t afraid of him, when she should be, or as if she didn’t hate him, when she should.

“You smell better now.” Her voice was a little high-pitched. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes.” The word came out in a pathetic croak. He was hungry for _this_ – for something clean-smelling and warm and close. Everything on Cygnus II was cold and harsh. Even his own hand, when he tugged himself to an underwhelming, mechanical orgasm every night, was cold and harsh. He could imagine all manner of lewd things while he masturbated – he had had nothing better to do with his time – but he couldn’t conjure the tactile warmth and softness of a woman. He knew he would think hungrily about _this_ – the way she was _tangible_ – when he touched himself.

Kylo took the blanket from her, adjusting it to wrap around his shoulders. It was warm from being pressed between their chests. He watched as she produced a packet of dehydrated broth from the pouch around her waist. She bustled around the bunker making him a meal. When the hot water from his noisy, gurgling pot mixed with it, a meaty, salty, rich smell filled the air. Little puddles of fat floated on the top of the liquid.

She poured the broth over a rehydrated portion of his greenish veg-meat. “There. Does that make it more tolerable?”

Kylo almost smiled. “I don’t think it’s supposed to be tolerable.”

Rey ducked her head, confirming his suspicions. She was not supposed to be on Cygnus II. She was not supposed to make his life more tolerable.

He took a bite of the broth-soaked veg-meat and almost moaned. It was better than tolerable.

***

Rey didn’t eat. She’d likely had enough veg-meat to last her a lifetime. She poured leftover hot water into a metal bucket and began scrubbing his clothes with the soap. Her hands were practiced with the scrub-brush.

She saw him watching her. “I used to scrub any parts I found out in the wrecks on Jakku so the junk boss would take them.”

Kylo slurped his broth greedily. He could see the junk boss’s face in his mind’s eye. He’d seen it in her memories, long ago. Her hands were still calloused and rough from picking hot, corroded metal bits out of old Star Destroyers and scrubbed them clean in acidic water. He wondered how her hands would have felt scrubbing him clean. “What kind of parts?”

Rey shrugged. “Converters. Adaptors. Gauges. Anything I could trade for portions.”

Kylo looked at his crates of vacuum-sealed veg-meat. “I’ll give you a hundred portions if you stop scrubbing a hole in my shirt, scavenger.”

Rey laughed, startled. It was an unexpected, lovely sound. Her hands stilled in the soapy water. She wrung his shirt out, slowly. “You need a haircut and a shave.”

Kylo set his multi-use utensil down. He wondered if she was acting on instinct now – finding something broken and malnourished and dirty and fixing it up. He was reminded of his mother. She’d frequently lamented as much – that he’d needed a haircut – when he’d been a boy. Scruffy-looking, she’d called him, smiling to soften the blow. “I’m not to be trusted with scissors or a razor.”

What he meant was that he wasn’t to be trusted not to kill himself. Rey gave him a disdainful look. She threw his wet clothes over the ladder’s rungs to dry, and rummaged in her pouch. She withdrew a straight blade and a pair of narrow utility shears. They were far too heavy and blunt to cut hair with any precision.

She held them up and clicked them experimentally. “Trust me?”

***

He sat naked under the blanket on a crate while she cut his hair. She circled him like a predatory raptor, snipping here and there. To cut his locks evenly, she had to run her fingers through it and tug his long, heavy curls straight. The feeling her of her sharp nails on her scalp made him shudder.

“Hold still.” Rey circled around the front. Her tongue peeked out between her lips. Her face was set in stern concentration. “Or I’ll cut you.”

“Cut a little lower.” Kylo told her, hoarsely, tilting his chin up and exposing his throat. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in days. She had been on Cygnus II for a matter of hours and his vocal chords ached.

“Don’t tempt me.” Rey muttered. The cold metal shears pressed against his forehead as she snipped the damp hair that fell across it.

“Better yet, cut my ears off.” Kylo closed his eyes as she moved to his left, her knee bumping his thigh.

“Never.” Rey’s finger traced the exposed shell of the left ear. The graze of her skin against his – the first he’d felt – send a nervous tremor down his spine. “ _That_ would be too merciful.”

***

After Kylo's hair was cut – badly, he guessed, from the uneven way it grazed his jaw – Rey crowded in between his legs and gripped his chin. She wielded the razor a little clumsily. It chafed his dry skin and eventually cut it. He licked the blood out of the corner of his mouth before he could stop himself.

Rey’s expression changed from one of fierce concentration to one of fascination. She’d shaved one half of his face – the other was still covered in a rough,  _scruffy_ beard. Her hand cupped the clean half. Her little thumb wedged itself in between his lips. It's tip tasted salty and coppery.

When she drew her digit away, damp with his spit, Kylo realized she’d just been wiping the blood off of him. He knew his face was hollowed out. The angles of it were even more extreme. Somehow, it was more painful for her to see the gauntness of his clean-shaven face than it was for her to see his naked body.

The outsides of her slender thighs were brushing against the insides of his. He drew the blanket tighter around himself, splaying his bare legs as far as he could without exposing his erection. He didn’t want to trap her between his legs.

Instead of backing away, Rey moved closer, cupped her hand around his ear, and held his face still. The razor passed his nose and, with a snick, moved across his other cheek.

Kylo exhaled shakily, unnerved by and pathetically grateful for her closeness. He closed his eyes and leaned the shaven half of his face into her rough, small palm. Already, his belly was tight with anxiety and dread. She would leave him alone again soon. It was a certainty.

As if she had skimmed his thoughts – perhaps she had – Rey said, in a low voice, “I’ll come back in two more cycles.”

Kylo bit into his lower lip. He could have wept with relief. “Why are you doing this?”

Rey exhaled slowly. He felt it against his eyelids. “I know what it’s like to be alone. The only thing that kept me alive was waiting.”

Kylo opened his eyes. Two cycles suddenly seemed impossibly long and lonely. “Waiting for what?”

“My family.” Rey said, bluntly. She was still holding his face in one hand. “What are you waiting for, Ben? What would make you want to live?”

The girl’s face was too sincere and too close to his. She was leaving. He didn’t want to drag it out and make it any more painful than it had to be. It was easier to part ways on bad terms. He wanted to drive her away, not cling pathetically to her. If she was angry with him, red-faced and shouting, he could pretend her didn't  _want_ her to stay. 

Sarcastically, breaking the spell of her gaze, he said, “Dirty holovids and chocolate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So will she bring him a dirty holo or nah?
> 
> (headcanon: Kylo has a lot of free time to angst-wank on that piece of rock)


	4. Holovid

Kylo thought that the memory of the girl’s finger on his cheek and ear and of the silhouette of her body through his blanket would make it easier to masturbate to her. It didn’t. He stared despondently up at the rocky cleft of the prison, absently stroking his half-hard cock. His efforts were as half-hearted as his erection.

She’d scrubbed his clothes so roughly. They were still damp; he was naked under a dry blanket. She’d handed it to him in a huff – or rather, she’d shoved it into his chest –  before she’d left. It was softer than his still-soggy scratchy blanket. It didn’t smell salty, like everything on Cygnus II did. It smelled stale, like space and a storage hatch.

Kylo wondered whether her hands would be rough on his skin, too. He tightened his grip to emulate hers, circling his thumb and foremost two fingers around the base of his member. The hair there was overgrown, too. She hadn’t left the shears so he could trim it; he couldn’t very well ask her to get on her knees and do it herself.

The thought of her on his knees finally – _finally_ – made his cock reach for his navel. He flexed his fist around it, experimentally, and began to pump. His hand was dry. It chafed a bit. He paused and spat into his palm. His salvia was a poor substitute for the slickness between a woman’s legs, but it facilitated his rhythmic, methodical masturbation.

All he would ever do was masturbate, he realized. His hand stilled just under the engorged head of his penis. He thumbed it, nervously. A knot settled in his belly. He couldn’t kill himself – he had come to accept that – whether because he was a coward or because she wouldn’t allow it and she had some mysterious power over him. He would spend forty, fifty, sixty years on a hunk of rock in deep space, jerking off to the briefest of touches and, if he was lucky, a pornographic holovid.

Panic gripped his throat. Rey had been embarrassed and angry when he’d lashed out at her sarcastically. He’d intended to embarrass and anger her. He _hadn’t_ intended to drive her away forever. He might have. It had been a stupid thing to say. He was a stupid, cock-sure nerf-herder with bantha shit for brains, just like his father–

Kylo kept yanking on his erection even as it gave way. When he brought his hands to his face to stifle the involuntary little sob that gurgled out of the back of his throat, his cock flopped limply onto his left thigh. Precum dribbled gloomily onto his leg. His breath rattled in the cold air. His balls ached with unspent cum.

In a moment of despondency and rage, he wondered if the scavenger was, in her own way, punishing him. She made him _long_ for her and she denied him. Her presence had made him feel her absence acutely. It made the pain worse. It made his hand seem even colder. It made the years ahead seem even longer.

Kylo slammed his fist into the rough-hewn rock that hemmed in his bunk. When he brought it back to his mouth and sucked on it to stop himself from yelling, he tasted blood.

***

“Chocolate.” Rey said the word as if it was distasteful. She handed him handful of vacuum-sealed parcels. “Disgusting stuff.”

Kylo took the sweets with shaking hands. They were worth their weight in gold – chocolate powder to mix with water, chocolate nibs, chocolate pudding. His mouth should have been watering. Instead it went dry.  He felt his cheeks turn red.

He _knew_ she’d found his other request disgusting. She was standing on the duracrete, round landing pad regardless. His voice was a miserable croak. “You don’t like chocolate?”

“It’s too sweet.” Rey’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t like things that are too sweet.”

They stood there in awkward silence for a long moment. Rey looked as if she was warring with herself. Then, she dug into her pocket and produced a palm-sized disc-shaped holoprojector. She couldn’t look him in the eyes as she thrust it at him.

Unable to belief his incredible good luck, Kylo blinked at it. “Is that…”

The girl looked inexplicably embarrassed. “Do you want it or not?”

Kylo snatched it. He turned the device over in his palms, searching for the little button that would bring it to life. He wouldn’t be able to see the holovid clearly in the open air – he would have to project it within the dark walls of his prison later – but he was too impatient and curious to wait.

“Kriff – _no_!” Rey lunged at him, snatching the holoprojector from him. “Don’t watch it until I leave, you _moof milker_.”

Kylo didn’t even have the grace to feel ashamed by his eagerness. “I don’t want you to leave.”

The words had erupted from his chest seemingly of their own volition. They sounded needy and juvenile. Rey’s eyes went wide and then narrowed. Her voice hitched and she tried to sound haughty. “I’m not going to stay and watch it _with you_.”

“Did you already watch it?” He hoped she had. That would make watching nude, nameless bodies feel somehow intimate. It would be as if they were sharing something.

Rey’s cheeks turned scarlet. “I – I – no!”

“You might have learnt something.” Kylo taunted.  Being a monster and a murderer wasn’t enough to drive her away; perhaps being perverse would. He deserved to be alone and despised. He hated himself as soon as he deployed that defense mechanism. It had worked _so well_ last time, after all, when he’d asked for the holovid in the first place.

Rey’s jaw clenched. “You’re disgusting.”

***

When Rey was gone – and he was freshly shaven and stuffed full of chocolate pudding – Kylo perched on the lip of one of the mine’s dead-ends. He looked down at the silvery river below, counting the birds that dotted it. It was agonizing but exciting to wait – somewhat like a twisted form of foreplay. The holoprojector was heavy in the pocket of his tunic.

When it was dark, he crept down the old mine shaft back to his bunker and stripped off his clothes. Any other night, he would have just unfastened his trousers and pulled his penis out, perfunctorily. He didn’t particularly enjoy looking down at his naked body, even though he’d put on a bit of weight thanks to the broth and stew rations Rey had secreted him.

Tonight, he got naked. He wanted this experience to be different. He wanted to think about something other than the girl and how out of reach she was when he touched himself. This would be a reprise from the monotony of his usual fantasies.  

Kylo settled on his back and set the holoprojector on his bare belly. It moved up and down with his breath. The tension that built up in his abdomen as he played with the little button inset on its flank was delicious. He wondered what Rey had picked for him. Was it something tame, an old classic he’d seen a hundred times as a boy? Would it be surprisingly vulgar? Would the actors use filthy language and rough each other up? Would they re-enact a romance, or at least a cheap imitation of romance?

He wondered what she liked, what she touched herself to, whether she’d touched herself to this holovid.

A soft groan punctuated the silence. This wasn’t _supposed_ to be about her. This was supposed to be about his base, male needs. It was still somehow _all about_ her.

Kylo pressed the button and the holovid flickered to three-dimensional, slightly-pixelated life over his belly. He’d expected two bodies, at least, in small scale. Instead, one figure leaned over the holoprojector’s motion-capture, as if not quite sure whether it was recording. She hummed nervously, and then straightened up.

It was Rey.

Kylo wasn’t sure when he’d started absently stroking his cock, coaxing it to life, but he stopped all of the sudden. His mouth dropped open. His jaw rested on his sternum.

Rey’s throat bobbed as she backed away from the motion-capture. The holovid’s quality was decent; he could detect the little twitches on the muscles of her face. She kept stepping away from the device recording her until he could see her whole body.

She was dressed, right down to her boots. Surely, this was a mistake. She must have accidentally recorded over the pornographic holovid. It was the only explanation, even if it didn’t make sense. She was a gifted mechanic; for kriff’s sake, she should have been able to use a simple holoprojector –

Rey’s hands settled on her leather belt. She didn’t look away from the recording device as she unbuckled it. It fell to the unseen floor beneath her with a clunk. The intricately folded blue material it had held fast to her torso parted, framing the valley of her breasts in her cotton undershirt.

Kylo’s cock twitched in his hand. It registered what this holovid was before his mind could.

It was a _striptease._

It was an unpracticed, awkward striptease. Rey hesitated, almost losing her nerve. She looked down at her hands as she pulled the blue fabric in either direction, shrugging it off of her narrow shoulders. It floated away from her. She didn’t seem to know what to do next or where to look.

Kylo couldn’t help but feel like a voyeur. He couldn’t help but be fascinated. He thumbed at the head of his erection, smoothing precum in circles around the slit of it. Reaching back, Rey yanked her hair out of its no-nonsense bun; he yanked his slick hand up the length of his erection. As she shook her hair out, the most prominent vein on the underside of his member throbbed against his palm.

A more experienced seductress might have wiggled her hips against the fabric, stretching it between her hands. She might have cupped her own breasts through her tunic. Rey did neither of those things. Her chest heaved as she took a great, deep breath.

Ben’s chest heaved in synchronicity. He couldn’t breathe, for some reason. His hand moved furiously between his legs.

The girl folded her arms across each other and grasped the hem of her undershirt. The garment mussed her hair in a way that made her look impossibly childish and inept as she stripped it off over her head. She held it over her breasts for a moment, her eyes flickering to the recording device.

It was as almost as if they made eye contact.

Rey dropped the shirt. Kylo hissed and strained forward off of his bunk as if that could help him see her breasts better. The holovid’s quality meant that he couldn’t tell if her nipples were hard. They were a girlish pink, perfectly centered on small mounds that matched in size precisely.

As if she was self-conscious of how poorly endowed she was, Rey put her hands over each of her breasts and pressed them together, bridging the broad, bony gap between them. When she did, the globes touched, looking fuller than they really were.

Her cheeks were as pink as her nipples when she let go of her breasts. They bounced ever-so-slightly as they separated. There wasn’t enough weight to them for them to jiggle.

Kylo shouldn’t have been as aroused as he was. She was scrawny, flat-chested, embarrassed, disgusted by him – she _would_ be disgusted by him if she knew he was pulling furiously on his cock, his clenched fingers smacking his tense, drawn-up balls every time he slammed them down along the length of his erection.

Rey’s fingers traced the outline of her breasts again. She looked down at them as if she’d never seen them before or considered their significance. Then, she looked up at him – no, at the recording device – _no_ , at him –

She sounded fierce. “You’re in solitary confinement. You don’t _get_ to look at anyone else.”

Kylo tasted blood again, this time from the inside of his lip. He bit into it, muffling a strangled, startled cry that no one would have heard as his cum splattered right _through_ the projected image of Rey and onto his chest and chin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm the only person with the distinction of writing not one but two sad masturbation scenes in one chapter *bows dramatically*. 
> 
> Also, I see you, Rey. I see you.


	5. Droid

The change of seasons on Cygnus II was minute. The thick, humid air thinned ever so slightly. The chill that always hung it in settled over the ground, making the brown-gold grass that tumbled over the riverbanks and surrounded the landing pad at the lip of the cliff brittle and frosty. The bunker under the bluff grew little icicles that melted by mid-day. Kylo shivered and shuddered through the night. He wore his blanket like a shroud during the day.

For a moment, Kylo thought someone else had stumbled upon his lonely piece of rock floating in space. Rey always flew an X-wing. Now, an Imperial-make old light freighter landed somewhat clumsily on the duracrete landing pad. It was non-descript, like the one that had secreted him to Cygnus II. He wondered whether its pilot was an unlucky spacer or a would-be-assassin who’d tracked Rey’s movements and found his prison.

Rey’s Force signature burned with the heat of a thousand dying stars. At first, Kylo thought she was angry. Then, for a brief, heady moment, he thought she was aroused. He dug his fingers into the hem of the blanket he was wearing around himself. It didn’t quite cut the chill. The fog clung to his skin.

Rey was embarrassed. She kicked an imaginary pebble as she circled the freighter. She was wrapped in a too-large leather jacket, a knit scarf tucked into the lapels of it. Her whole torso was obscured. It was a shame. Ben knew was it looked like bare now. He hadn’t gotten sick of looking at it.

An orange and white BB unit rolled behind the girl, chirping and wobbling. It watched, rocking back and forth, as she unloaded crates. Kylo nearly tripped on the unit as he approached her. She was bent over a crate, opening it with her multi-tool. Her too-big jacket rode up her back as she worked. He wondered whether it was borrowed. She was a desert mouse, after all. He didn’t want to think about who might have lent her a jacket.

Her leggings weren’t borrowed. They looked as though they’d been cut to fit her tight little backside and long legs. They had been made for her, or rather, for _his_ benefit. When the jacket rode up, he could see how the seat stretched over the curve of her bottom.

As if she sensed him ogling her, Rey straightened up and turned around. Her words erupted in a puff of wispy condensation in the cool air. “Stop staring at my ass.”

Kylo looked at the row of zippers and buttons on the jacket, resenting them. He squinted, imagining the breasts he’d seen over and over on his prized, precious holovid. No matter _how_ cold it was, he couldn’t see her nipples through the bulky, shapeless coat. He slowly drew his gaze up her body - over her narrow neck, her jutting chin.

Rey crossed her arms over her chest, creating another protective layer. “I brought some things to keep you warm.”

Kylo couldn’t stop himself. It was some sort of _compulsion_ , being crude and abrasive when he was around her. It gave him a brief feeling of being in control despite how powerless he was. “Did you bring me another holovid?”

A muscle in the girl’s jaw twitched. She hoisted up a box and shouldered past him. “Pervert.”

Kylo clambered down the ladder after her.  “I’m bored of the one you gave me.”

It was a lie; intended to provoke. Rey looked momentarily insulted. Then, her expression narrowed with focus. He felt her slam against his mind gracelessly. It was over in an instant. She knew he’d watched it over and over, panting helplessly and fucking his own hand. “Give it back, then.”

Kylo felt his ears grow hot. “I…”

“Liar.” Rey scoffed. She plunked the box down in the corner of his bunker, near his makeshift nest of the blankets she’d given it. She crouched and fiddled with something that sputtered to life, cranky and loud.

“It isn’t as good as the real thing.” Kylo told her, feeling inexplicably angry that she’d read his mind and seen just how pathetic he was. He hated her for teasing him with her naked body when he couldn’t have it. “I can’t… _touch_.”

His voice cracked with that word. He wanted so _badly_ to touch her – it didn’t even matter where. Her ear or her ankle would suffice. He hadn’t felt someone’s skin rasp against his in so long.  

Rey’s head jerked for a moment. She ducked back down and kept working. After a moment, she spoke as if she hadn’t heard him. Her voice was stiff and formal. “Do you speak binary?”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“I’m leaving Beebee with you.” Above them, peering down the hatch, the droid made a low, mechanical noise of alarm.

“Why?” Ben scowled at her hair. Half of it was in a neat bun. The other half tangled over her shoulders.

“I won’t be back in two cycles.” Rey stood up, wiping black grease onto her tight trousers. Heat radiated from behind her. He imagined that it radiated from her. In the cold of his prison, he longed for the warmth of her body. His hand twitched at his side; he fisted it to keep himself from reaching for her.  

“What?” Ben repeated, numbly.

“I’ll be back in three cycles.” Rey bit her lip, as if she was nervous that he would lash out. “Or four.”

Devastation hit him unexpectedly, like a punch in the gut. He felt like a little boy again, being left with a nanny droid or Threepio while his mother went on a diplomatic mission or political quest and his father pissed away credits on some backwater world. He felt, for the first time in a long time, truly hopeless. “W – why?”

Pity flashed across the girl’s features. She schooled them. “I have to go somewhere. Do something.”

“What?” Kylo heard his voice. It was high-pitched, like a little boy’s. His eyes felt very wet.

“Nothing.” Rey shifted.

Kylo’s abdomen contracted. She was _going somewhere_ with someone. She was going to _do something_ with someone. A man. He was sure of it. A year ago, he would have raged at the prospect. Now, he wanted to vomit, or curl into a fetal position and waste away. Perhaps four cycles not eating would the trick. She wouldn’t be back in two cycles to make him soup and pudding. “Who?”

“It’s not – I’m not – ” Rey stopped short. Her breath hitched miserably. She tried to change the subject. “Beebee better be in one piece when I come back. He’s Poe’s. I borrowed him – ”

“Poe?” Kylo choked. “Poe Dameron?”

 _Of course_ the smug, arrogant bastard would be the one to lure Rey to bed on some glittery, cosmopolitan planet. He had soft curls and a charming smile and he was perfectly proportioned. He didn’t bare his teeth and hulk around like a great bony monstrous –

“He’s terribly fond of Beebee.”

“Is he terribly fond of you?” Kylo rasped, before he could stop himself. He could have looked in her memories – if he took her by surprise, she wouldn’t be able to stop him – but he was afraid to. He’d seen her small, perfect breasts. He couldn’t bear to see another man’s hands cupping them, tweaking their stiff peaks, squeezing them together.

Dameron’s hands didn’t have as much blood on them as his did. They were gentler, Kylo was sure.

“The space heater is solar powered.” Rey whispered, gesturing to the device she’d brought with her. Ever practical, she went on. “Beebee is, too. You need to put them out on the landing pad when it’s not so gray.”

Kylo couldn’t bring himself to nod. He was shivering despite the warmth emanating from the space heater. Slumping over to his bunk, he sat on it heavily, resting his elbows on his knees. His – no, Poe’s –  clever mechanic girl went to scale the ladder.

Closing his eyes, Kylo exhaled through his nose. He was been angry. She was _abandoning_ him. The anger exhausted him. He wanted nothing more than to sleep.

Rey’s boots clicked on the metal rungs of the latter and pattered on the damp floor. Her little hand cupped his chin. He opened his eyes as she tilted his head back. “Kylo.”

“You never say my name.” Kylo realized, aloud.

Rey gave him an inscrutable look. “You never say mine.”

Kylo let out a slow, shuddering breath. He’d thought his wells of anger were exhausted. They weren’t’. She’d betrayed him. “Scavenger.”

Rey’s mouth twisted for a moment. Her nails pierced the skin of his jaw, one of them digging into the scar tissue that bisected his left cheek. She held him in place by the slack skin of his face, and then let him go. When she was sure he wasn’t going to look back at his feet in their worn-out boots, she unzipped her jacket, shoving the sleeves of it down her biceps to bunch at her elbows.

Slack-jawed, Kylo looked up at her.

Hindered by the bunched cloth, Rey unbuckled her belt. Her tunic billowed free once it clunked to the floor. Moving ungracefully – just as ungracefully as she had stripped for the holoprojector – she wriggled one arm free of the jacket. The empty sleeve brushed the floor.

Seizing his wrist, Rey thrust his hand under the hem of her tunic. His clenched fingers collided with the naked, flat plane of her abdomen. His knuckles dragged across her navel.

The fabric of her shirt nearly ripped as she pushed his hand up and _up_. His fist unclenched, instinctively, as she did. His palm flattened, skimming over her skin. It settled on one of her breasts; Kylo would have thought that was an accident if not for her iron grip and the fierce look on her face.

Her breast was soft and small, like a piece of ripe fruit he could eat in one bite. As his fingers tightened around the soft mound, experimentally, her nipple rose to meet his calloused palm. It tickled him.

The nipple of her other breast poked through the fabric of the tunic. Kylo’s mouth dropped open as he stared at it. His other hand twitched reflexively on his thigh. He wanted to touch that breast too, to rub the tight peak of it between his thumb and forefinger. He wanted to _suck_ it.

Kylo half-expected the girl to punch him or slap him or call him a pervert. She didn’t. She stood stock still. When his other hand crept, entirely of its own accord, under her hem and up her torso, to cup her other breast, he felt her heart hammering underneath its fleshy warmth.  

“Rey...” Kylo said her name as if he was asking permission. Her shirt had ridden up as he massaged her breasts under it. Her exposed belly was riddled in gooseflesh in the cold air. She would be cold if he took the garment off over her head but oh, he wanted to, he wanted to see his hands on her –

Rey braced herself on his forearms, her little fingers gripping them for purchase. Her voice was low and pleading. “ _Ben_.”

Kylo drew his hands out from under her shirt as if he’d been scalded. They were shaking. The only way he could stop them from shaking was to make tight, angry fists again.

***

The droid – Beebee, Kylo begrudgingly called it, even though he didn’t consider droids worthy of names – was indignent at having been abandoned on Cygnus II. When he carried it down the ladder into his prison cell, it zipped in circles nervously, screeching and beeping.

“She’s not here.” Kylo told it, exasperated, when it clipped his ankles. Beebee made an accusing, whistling noise. “She’s with Poe Dameron.”

Beebee indicated that it wholeheartedly approved of Poe Dameron.

With a low growl, Kylo kicked the droid half-way across the prison cell. With a fizzle and a _blerp_ , the droid shut down, a component of it’s swivel-top _head_ , for lack of a better word, skittering across the duracrete floor.

“Kriff.” Kylo froze. He knelt by the droid, punching its control panel frantically. It was nonresponsive. He swore, colorfully, in Huttese. That felt _good_. He did it again.

 This little droid was Rey's friend. She was fond of it. She had entrusted it to him. He had to fix it.

Kylo crawled across the floor and found his dusty, neglected toolkit. There were no sharp tools in it. He didn’t know how to use half of the tools that were in it. He hadn’t done anything _useful_ since he’d been in imprisoned on Cygnus II. His fingers were clumsy and unpracticed.

Kylo hadn’t worked with his hands – _fixed_ anything – since he’d been a boy. His father had taught him to use a wrench and pliers, deep in the belly of the decrepit Millennium Falcon. He’d been patient about it. That was the only time he’d been patient. When Kylo – Ben, he’d been called, then – had fumbled and cut the wrong wire or dropped a tool, he’d ruffled his hair and encouraged him.

Kylo picked a familiar tool – a square-edged screwdriver. He tested its weight in his hand. Under his breath, he said, “You can fix this, kid.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sobs*
> 
> Worry not, a shirtless push-ups and sit-ups montage will cheer you up! Kylo's gotta get in shape if he wants to get his paws back on Rey. 
> 
> P.S. A few of you have asked what exactly their history is... I'm not telling. Yet. But speculate away!


	6. Little Jedi

Beebee was never quite the same after that.

His headpiece, for lack of a better word, was dinged, but it was his attitude that suffered. He rolled around and made shrill noises at dawn He whistled and cooed reproachfully when Kylo stood under the cold salty spray of the fresher. He hissed and clucked when he caught him masturbating.

“Don’t you dare tell her.” Kylo muttered, rolling onto his back and drawing his blankets around himself to hide his erection. He’d been kneeling on his bunk, grinding his hips into the blankets beneath him in semi-circles, both hands snaked below his belly to cup and massage his member from either side. He remembered how soft and pliant Rey’s small breasts were and wondered whether he could nudge his cock in between them if he pressed them together with enough force. For argument – or fantasy’s – sake, he decided he could. They would be so soft and sticky with sweat, almost like a cunt, but not quite. His kneading hands were a poor substitute.

Beebee made a reproachful sound, and if he didn’t know better, Kylo would think the droid knew the depths of his sexual depravity. “I mean it. I’ll reprogram you.”

Beebee _snorted_ – or maybe not. Maybe he _was_ going crazy. He was talking to a droid.

***

The rotund little droid needed the sun’s rays, however weak and filtered they were on Cygnus II, to recharge. Begrudgingly, Kylo carried him up the ladder and sat on the lip of the landing pad, watching the droid bask with its solar panels extended indecently and its head tilted back.

The sun felt good on his skin. It burned in a purifying way if he fell asleep on the landing pad, lying spread-eagle. The bridge of his nose turned red and peeled. Beebee made a disapproving noise as he fingered it.

“I didn’t know you cared.” Kylo told it.

Had it had a face, Beebee might have narrowed its eyes.

The next day, Kylo threw rocks at the predatory birds who nested in the cliffs as they swooped around him like he was a carcass and they carrion. His aim was poor and his arm weak, but by accident, he hit one. For a moment, he felt badly. Then, Beebee whooped.

That night, he roasted the bird on his little hot-plate. It didn’t quite heat evenly. Beebee begrudgingly extended his flame-starter. It glowed blue and hot in the dank cavern.

Beebee made an exasperated noise, and rolled closer. The blue flame licked his arm.

“Ow!” He didn’t kick the droid again. He knew – somehow – that the droid was trying to be helpful. It watched him, expectantly. He held his metal plate – balancing the half-raw bird carcass on it – over the flame-starter. “Don’t burn me.”

Beebee clucked. The bird’s fatty skin started to sizzle.

It was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

***

Beebee was an adventurous droid. He explored the bluff above the cliffs, rolling clumsily in the thick grass and whistling for Kylo to follow. As he did, he ducked down into the grass, scooping up eggs from forgotten nests. They were small and blue in his hands. He wasn’t sure if they were edible, but the sea-birds were. He’d run out of chocolate pudding and broth and he was sure if he ate plain veg-meat for one more day, he’d lose his mind.

There came a low, nervous whistle. Beebee had rolled precariously close to the cliff-edge.

“Beebee, no!” Kylo yelled. He dropped his precious eggs – his precious, precious protein – and ran, unthinking, towards the errant droid. Rey would be furious if it ended up in a heap of scrap metal on the jagged rocks below. She would blame him.

Beebee made a reproachful noise as Kylo skidded to his knees and grasped him on either side, yanking him away from the edge – he hadn’t been about to _fall._

“Don’t scare me like that.” Kylo huffed, wiping sweat off of his brow. His heart was beating very fast. He had pictured, for a moment, what it would be like to be alone – truly alone – again. He’d grown used to the droid’s wide vocabulary and snotty algorithm. It filled the silence in his head that would otherwise drive him insane. He would have to talk to _himself_ if it weren’t for the droid.

Without thinking, he stroked the droid’s round, cool flank.

***

“Am I still sunburned?” Kylo asked Beebee, absently, one morning, as he fingered his beard and wondered whether he could hack it off his his multitool. He wasn’t to be trusted with a knife or a razor – a wicked part of him wondered whether Rey just wanted an excuse to shave him herself, to have her blade next to his throat – and he was wild-haired and scruffy.

In response, Beebee wriggled a little and opened up it’s multi-tool port. Out popped its small, rectangular solar charging pads. They were silvery. When Kylo bent and looked closely at them, he realized he could see his own reflection in them.

“Kriff.” He said, aloud. He was sunburned, his beard hadn’t been shaved in three cycles, and worse, he was bony and gaunt. He hadn’t seen his own face since he’d been dropped on the _space rock_ , as he privately referred to his prison planet. Now, he saw what Rey had seen every time she came to him.

He didn’t recognize himself. He flexed his arms, frowning. They were sinewy. His hands looked absurdly large now that they weren’t muscular. His face had never been particularly attractive to women or frightening to his enemies, but his body always had been. It had been a tool of intimidation and seduction. No more.

Rey must have been disgusted by him. For a moment, Kylo wanted to punch something – the rock walls, Beebee, anything. He didn’t. He exhaled heavily through his nose, staring at his collarbones.

Then, he dropped to the floor – Beebee rolled away with a squeak – and started doing push-ups. After fifty, he collapsed on his back, breathing hard. Beebee rolled closer. Kylo opened one eye, expecting a noise of judgment or disparagement.

Instead, the droid chirped encouragingly.

The next day, Kylo did sixty push-ups, and ate a dozen tiny blue eggs.

***

Kylo had taken to rationing the holovid of Rey’s naked breasts. He didn’t watch it often. He was worried if he did, it wouldn’t titillate him. He wanted to savor it. When he watched it, he put Beebee in sleep mode. He wanted to be alone with Rey – or rather, the eight-inch blueish holograph of her.

Beebee eyed him suspiciously as he knelt. “I don’t want you to see this.”

Beebee would have cocked an eyebrow if he had one. Kylo pressed the pertinent button. “You don’t want to know.”

***

Kylo hadn't cried after – or, horrifyingly, during – masturbation in a few cycles. The sunlight, his punishing daily regimen of push-ups by the hundred, and his newfound source of protein made him feel clear-headed, if not optimistic.

But it had been almost four cycles, and the best way he could quantify his loneliness was by its weight. His jealousy came and went like a tide. His loneliness was constant. It settled like condensation on his skin, curving his spine with his heaviness. It sapped his energy.

He didn’t have the energy to be angry that Rey was likely in bed with another man, but the fact that there was another man – at least, in his mind – created a deep pit of depression in his psyche.

Rey would fall in love and marry that other man, one day. She would have his children and be preoccupied with them. She wouldn’t make the pilgrimage to Cygnus II when that happened. But he would be alone through all the seasons of life.

When Rey’s image flickered out, he cried. He held his hand over his mouth, as if someone might hear him. Beebee asked him, later, with a low whistle, whether he’d been crying.

“No.” Kylo looked at the rough-hewn rock above his bunk. After a beat – feeling like an idiot for carrying on like this with a droid, and not even a hospitality droid or nanny droid, but an astrotech droid, of all things – he asked, “Do you think she’ll come back?”

Beebee was sure she would. Rey would never abandon it on this desolate, cold, piece of space rock.

“She would never leave you.” Kylo conceded. He scrunched his eyes closed and said – he really was losing his mind - to himself, “She would never leave you.”

***

When Rey came back, Beebee was unreserved in its joy. It rolled to her at top speed, squealing and spinning like a top. Rey knelt to greet it.

She greeted him with less warmth. Her breath formed puffs in the cool air. “What happened to his head?”

Kylo scowled. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting – a smile, relief, physical touch? – but her ire roused his. He was so pathetically grateful that she was back, even after fucking some spacer or pilot, that he hated himself. “I kicked it.”

“ _It_?” Rey looked outraged. “You kicked my droid?”

“I was – ” Kylo tried, feebly, to defend himself.

The girl cut him off with a snarl. “Beebee, you’re coming back with me.”

To Kylo’s surprise, Beebee shrank into his side, half-hiding behind his calves. It shook its head-piece back and forth, nervously. Rey blinked. “Poe wants you back, Beebee.”

Beebee made an apologetic noise and shrunk away.

“He likes me.” Kylo said. He couldn’t help but sound a little smug.

Rey’s lips twitched. It was almost a smile. “You’ve corrupted my droid.”

Kylo thought about her naked breasts under his hands. His fingers twitched by his sides. “Have I corrupted _you_ , little Jedi?”

Rey’s cheeks pinked. He wondered whether she’d been doing things expressly forbidden to Jedi during the four cycles she’d been away. “Don’t call me that.”

“Scavenger.” Kylo followed her down the ladder.

“Monster.” Rey retorted. She yanked out her shears and waved them at him threateningly. “You look like a bantha.”

***

After his hair was shorn, Kylo stripped off his jacket and, with a deep, fortifying breath, his shirt. As he shook a flurry of brown and black hairs from the fabric onto the floor, he shivered, arching his shoulders back and forth to stay warm.

He caught sight of Rey’s face. Her mouth was rounded and parted. She looked almost confused, much as she had the first time she’d seen his face.

If Kylo had felt smug when Beebee had chosen him over Poe, now he felt insufferably smug. He lowered his shirt and sat still on his crate for her inspection. She circled him slowly, like a predator. It was a concentric circle. She drew closer and closer to him as she rounded his body.

Tilting her chin up, she rested her knuckles on his sternum. For a moment, he thought she would punch him.

Her little hand was warm on his pectoral. It splayed out, curiously, and then she gripped his nipple, ever-so-gently, between her thumb and index finger. As if she sensed he didn’t like it when she was too gentle, she pinched it and twisted a little.

Kylo couldn’t help the little grumble that reverberated in his chest when she did that.

As if that animal noise shocked her, Rey yanked her hand away from his cold-pebbled skin. The noise that erupted from him then was still more feral. Holding his discarded shirt in one hand, Kylo reached blindly for her waist or hips or anything he could hold her in place with.

Rey swayed, as if she was going to run away, when he caught her. Kylo might have pressed his mouth against hers, if he had been standing. He was taller and, now, stronger than her. He could have forced her to kiss him, holding her hair with one hand and her chin with the other.

But she was holding sharp shears and he didn’t want to die, at least not until he’d tasted her.

Instead, Kylo held her hips in his hands, held her between his knees, and buried his face in the breasts he had fantasized about for days. He mouthed wetly at her them through her shirt. His teeth left little half-moon-shaped indents in the fabric.

Kylo felt her heartbeat pattering rapidly though the fabric. The scissors clanged to the ground. “Ben…”

She wasn’t holding the shears anymore. She couldn’t press them to his throat or brandish them to hold him off. He was emboldened. His fingers scraped at her skin as he pushed her shirt up, latching clumsily onto her right breast and trying to swallow it whole as if it would sustain him. When she tried to pull away, he sucked harder, her nipple rolling along his tongue.

After a moment, her hand fluttered onto the back of his head. Her nails dug into his scalp. Her back arched under his hands so sharply he thought it might break. A soft, conciliatory noise came from the back of her throat.

He knew then that he _had_ corrupted the little Jedi.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next... co-sleeping, awkward boners, more masturbation (duh), and of course the staple of this fic, angst.
> 
> P.S. Beebee and Kylo are bros, and Beebee knows bros come before hoes.


	7. Touch

The _crack_ of Rey’s palm against his cheek would have come as a shock if her other hand hadn’t knotted in the unruly hair at the base of his skull and yanked his face from her breast. Kylo heard it before he felt it.

The girl looked almost shocked by what she’d done. Her hand hovered between them, fingers twitching. Her face was drawn, as if she expected him to retaliate but she was too proud to apologize.

Even the painful wallop of her palm was better than being untouched and _craving_ touch.

On instinct, Kylo seized her hand by the wrist and sucked her fingers into his mouth. They tasted vaguely like grease and sweat. His tongue glided along callouses and close-cropped nails. He was sloppy and his teeth grazed her skin. He didn’t look away from her face.

Rey looked just as shocked by his behavior as she had by her own. When she pulled her fingers from his mouth and slapped him again, she left wet prints on his cheek.

Kylo blinked up at her. _That_ had burned. He touched his face; his fingertips came away damp. The girl was breathing hard, her wet mouth hanging open. She traced the red mark she’d surely left on his freshly-shaved jaw with trembling fingers.

Rey’s eyes flickered to his mouth. Her hand tightened in his locks. For a moment, Kylo thought she was going to bend towards him and kiss him. He should have known that a kiss was too intimate.

Instead, she dragged his face into her breasts again. Eagerly, he lapped at the point of one, his sloppy mouth making circles around the nipple. He bit ever-so-softly – she made a squeaking noise, anyways – into the soft flesh of it and then nuzzled his way to the other side. Her skin was a greater luxury than any holovid, any chocolate, anything. He felt drunk.

One of his hands – almost by force of habit; he’d relied on his own fist to orgasm for so long – snaked down between his splayed thighs. He fumbled with the fastenings of his pants, trying to take his cock out. He desperately needed her to touch him _there._ He’d settle for touching himself.

She must have heard the sticky slap-slap-slap of his fist bouncing frantically up and down his cock. She looked down, the tip of her chin nearly touching his forehead. She couldn’t have seen what he was doing – he was latched onto her still, blocking her view and working his tongue in tight circles – but she knew.

“You’re disgusting.” Rey choked out. The word ended in a little huff when he sunk his teeth into her soft flesh.

With great reluctance, Kylo let go of her breast with a pop and tilted his head back. His hand worked absently even as his throat bobbed with trepidation. Hoarsely, he asked, “Are you going to hit me again?”

She did. She hit his left cheek, but after, she caressed the right cheek. Her touch turned rough, manipulating the skin of his jaw. Then, her hand traversed his long, narrow face, and tugged his ear mercilessly.

Kylo groaned and tilted his head back, his balls tightening almost painfully. Rey sucked in a deep breath. He could sense an apology on the tip of her tongue. She thought she’d hurt him, slapping and manhandling him. She didn’t realize he was caught in throes of deviant sexual ecstasy.

Then, she said, sounding very young, “Oh. _Oh_.”

His cum splattered over the ridges of his lean, contracting abdomen. Some of it got on the hem of her bunched-up shirt and belly. None of it got on her spit-wet breasts. That was fitting. She was always just out of reach. He could touch himself, but she wouldn’t touch him. He could cum in his own hand but not in hers. Not _in_ her. Never in her.

 Breathing hard, Kylo looked down at the mess he’d made. His thighs were trembling. Rey was still standing between them. A flurry of movement caught his eye; she wrestled her bunched-up shirt down over her belt. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her elbows looked sharp enough to cut him.

He wondered if she’d wash it – get the stain of his seed out of it. He wondered if she’d sniff if before she did. The thought made his cock twitch, limply, against his thigh.

They each regarded each other, warily, and then Rey said, red-cheeked and very formally, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I ought to go.”

Kylo didn’t tell her that _that_ hurt more than her little hands. He slammed his fist against the rock wall of his prison and roared once she had shimmied up the ladder, shears in tow. He expected to hear the roar of her X-wing’s engine’s echo his roar of despair.  

Instead, he heard her yell, her voice curiously high-pitched, “ _Beebee_!”

When he confronted her on the landing pad, her fists were clenched. She was magnificent in her anger. He far preferred her anger to her embarrassment or pity. Perhaps that was why he didn’t mind when she slapped him.

“Kriffing droid fried my engine.” Rey growled.

Beebee whistled an apology. He rolled behind Kylo’s knees and nudged them, suggestively. Kylo nearly stumbled. He glared at the little droid and then realized what his rotund, durasteel companion had done for him. It had trapped Rey – albeit temporarily – on Cygnus II just as surely as Kylo was trapped. “I’ll help you fix it.”

Rey’s eyes narrowed. He’d insulted her. _Of course_ he had, the garbage picker. “I don’t _need_ your help, moof-milker.”

“It’s almost dusk.” Kylo tried again, clearing his throat awkwardly. He tried not to sound too entreating. He wanted her to stay longer, desperately. “You can’t work in the dark.”

“Beebee will hold a light up for me.” Rey looked at the little astrotech droid menacingly. “Won’t you, Beebee?”

Beebee made a noise as if to say _don’t look at me._

***

They shared a meal of veg-meat, plastic-sealed and only somewhat reheated bantha stew, and chocolate pudding. Rey ate with the kind of vigor Kylo could not muster. His diet was too unvaried.

“Hungry?” He asked, finally, awkwardly.

“I’m always hungry.” Rey murmured.

Kylo wondered how long she’d spent crammed in the cockpit of her X-wing without food. Ten hours? Twelve? He toyed with his multi-use utensil. He’d offered it to Rey; she’d scoffed and used her fingers. “Where do you go when you’re gone?”

Rey swallowed slowly. “I go a lot of places.”

Kylo’s voice was curiously thick. He couldn’t help but feel betrayed, even though he had no right to. “Where were you? All this time?”

“Coruscant.”

Kylo thought back to what she’d said when he’d pulled his cock out. _You're disgusting…_ He looked at his hands. “With … with someone?”

“Yes.” Rey set her pudding cup down. She looked as if she knew what question he wanted to ask. He couldn’t bear to ask it. Instead, he asked,  

“What did you eat?”

“What?”

“On Coruscant. What did you eat?”

“All sorts of things.” Rey faltered. “These pastries with cream inside them. Little pieces of bantha steak on a skewer.”

“Did you hear any music?” Kylo pictured her in a club – not a seedy one, that thought made his hackles rise – listening to jazz ensemble made up of human and distinctly _not_ human musicians. He imagined her making up names for the oddly shaped flutes, horns, and harps, not knowing their proper names.

“Yes.” Rey made a little face. “I didn’t like it.”

“Everyone likes music.”

“I don’t.” Rey rubbed her biceps. “Coruscant is too… loud. It gives me a headache. I like silence.”

Ben shifted. “I hate the silence. I think I’m losing my mind.”

To his surprise, Rey’s eyes flooded with tears. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.” Kylo told her, humorlessly. “I started talking to the kriffing droid.”

“That’s why I left Beebee with you.” Rey sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“He’s cold. He’s made of metal.” Kylo bit into the meat of his lower lip. “You’re… warm and soft.”

Rey almost laughed. It was a strange, strangled sound. “There’s nothing soft about me.”

Kylo thought about her breasts in his hands and his mouth. He thought about the food and soap and small kindnesses she bestowed upon him. “Yes, there is.”

Rey made a little face, as if she was embarrassed.

They sat in silence for a long time and Kylo exhaled, slowly. He suddenly felt very vulnerable, in a way he hadn’t when he’d had his cock out and worshipped her breasts with his mouth. He hadn’t asked permission to do that. He knew she would let him. She always let him – whether out of guilt, or out of pity, or out of long-repressed lust, he didn’t know. “Will you let me touch you tonight?”

Her lower lip trembled. “Not like – ”

“No.” Kylo made a soft, desperate noise in the soft place at the back of his throat. “Just… touch. I’ve been so lonely.”

***

Rey _was_ warm and soft in his bed, or rather, his bunk. She lay on her back, her hands balled by her sides. Kylo stood, awkwardly. Her eyes were closed. He didn’t want to startle her.

Beebee cooed encouragingly. Without opening her eyes, Rey said, “Go to sleep, Beebee.”

“Droids don’t sleep.”

“Do, too.” Rey opened one eye. “Don’t you?”

Not tonight, he wouldn’t. He didn’t tell her that. He feinted, and then worked up his nerve, and knelt on the side of his hard bunk next to her legs. As he swung himself over her, he was struck by how small and vulnerable she looked. She barely breathed underneath him.

Once he was tucked against the rock wall of his prison and her body, crammed on his side like a smoked delicacy in a vacuum-sealed pack, she exhaled, slowly. “How do you want to touch me?”

Kylo touched her arm, with two fingers. She smelled very clean. She didn’t smell salty, like the water and the mist on Cygnus II. Wiggling closer, Kylo curled his body like a half moon, very slowly lowering his arm like a crane over her belly. He hesitated when it hovered two inches above her body, giving her a window of escape. She didn’t move.

He settled on top of her, and her breath left her in a little whoosh. Feeling far too big and heavy and clumsy, he rested his head, very carefully, on the soft spot of her torso just below her collarbones. His nose nudged into the v-shape at the top of her tunic.

When she didn’t squirm away, he sighed happily and kissed her sternum. He let his weight melt into her.

“You like those.” She sounded faintly confused. It took him a moment to realize that she meant her breasts.

“I’m exiled on a deserted hunk of space rock. If you showed me your _ankles_ , I’d like them, too.”

Rey laughed. It jiggled his head. Instinctively, as if to steady him, she cupped the nape of his neck, stroking it. It felt like something his mother would do.

“I haven’t done this in a long time.” He said, into her shirt. He didn’t tell her how long. It had been years and years since he’d let someone hold with like a little boy. It had always made him feel too vulnerable.

“I haven’t _ever_ done this.” Rey traced the rim of his ear.

Kylo burrowed deeper into her body, and into the warm, safe feeling of being _touched._ He felt sleepy and boneless all over. Even his traitorous cock was soft and compliant. Now that his nose was pressed close to her skin, he realized she didn’t smell entirely clean. She smelled a little like him. He imagined her alone in the great big desert, night after cold night, and thought he understood why she came to him, over and over. 

Her heartbeat had slowed and steadied under his ear when she said, in a soft voice, cracked with guilt or sorrow, “I liked the silence. I hated being alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay friends. I've been going through a pretty stressful personal situation which has dampened my creativity. That said, writing distracts me and it's good for me. So is your support and encouragement! 
> 
> P.S. Awkward boner coming up *next* chapter, this one got too feelsy.


	8. Secret

Kylo’s dreams had slowly become less and less vivid during his time on Cygnus II. For years, he’d had nightmares. Shadowy creature and seductive, oily voices poisoned his sleep. Those nightmares had faded during his exile, but so had his fantasies, as if he was slowly forgetting everything about the far-reaching galaxy beyond his space rock.

That night, nestled against Rey’s chest, he dreamed of Coruscant. He had been there many times, but his memories had started to fade into bleak nothingness. He dreamed of being on Coruscant with her, amongst all the bright lights and strange sounds. Even on the overstimulating, overpopulated planet, _she_ was in focus. Everything else blurred. He forgot everything else about the dream by the time he woke up, the salty, musty scent of his cavern filling his nostrils – and something else.

Rey’s hair stilled smelled like space. A piece of it fluttered over his face, dancing in the ebb and flow of his breaths. He huffed; it rose and fell. With one finger, he caught it. He rubbed it between his thumb and foremost finger. It was not as soft as he imagined it would be. It was coarse, like she was sometimes, after years on a coarse planet.

She was very warm in the crook of his arm, but she was curled protectively in on herself as if she was cold. Her back formed a half-moon against his belly and chest. He could feel her shoulder blades and hip bones digging into his flesh.

For the first time, he realized she was nearly as thin as he was. He wondered why. _She_ wasn’t trapped on a remote planet by people who fervently hoped she’d starve to death before too long. She sampled delicacies on _Coruscant._

Kylo wriggled closer, wondering just how little fat kept their bones from grinding against each other’s. Her backside was nearly as bony as her hips and back, but before their pelvises could _clack_ together, he was met with two soft, slight mounds of flesh.

He hadn’t woken up hard in a long time, as if his body had given up hope. He ordinarily had to coax it to life with his hand and his holovid. Now, pressed conveniently in the valley of her backside, his cock stiffened, pressing insistently again each swell of muscle and fat.

Rey shifted, her little fist coming up to curl by her face. Kylo held his breath, sure that the tip of his erection pressed against her tailbone had woken her rudely. He couldn’t see her face. Imagining it painted with disgust made his stomach tense up with shame. _Shamelessly,_ his cock didn’t go soft. 

When she didn’t sit up and slap him, he buried his face in her mussed hair, closed his eyes, and exhaled in relief. When his lungs were empty, he sucked them full of her sleep-scent.

Beebee whistled. _Why are you smelling Rey?_

“Go to sleep, Beebee.” Kylo whispered, without opening his eyes.

Beebee made a disgruntled noise, but he powered down obediently. The fizzing noise he made as he did so must have woken Rey.

“Why did you do that?” Her voice was thick with sleep. She craned her neck to look at him over her shoulder. The fabric of his sleeve, used as her meagre pillow, had left a red little crease on her cheek. It looked almost like a wound.

Kylo looked at her for a long moment. Her eyes were hooded with sleep. He imagined they were hooded with lust. Every time he had touched her, she’d stood over him. It was intoxicating to see her lying beneath him. It appealed to the man he used to be – a more ruthless, decisive man. Women used to lie down for him. Enemies used to kneel for him.

It was easy to imagine that she was submitting to him – that she _wanted_ him.

Kylo leaned over and kissed the juncture of her shoulder and her neck. It was a loud, obscene kiss. His tongue laved at her skin sloppily before he withdrew.

When he withdrew, he expected to see Rey’s eyes go wide with shock and then narrow with anger. They didn’t. They flickered closed, just as her mouth opened. A wordless little croaking sound came from it.

Ducking back down, Kylo kissed her throat again, holding onto her hip so that the instinctive undulation of his hips into her bottom didn’t jostle her off of his narrow bunk. She made a soft noise and wriggled away; as she did, his erection pressed in between her folded thighs.

She was even _warmer_ there. He thought he could feel the damp of her sex through her trousers. A peculiar shiver ran down his spine.

“Please.” Kylo rasped against the nape of her neck, dry-thrusting clumsily against her. He was helpless to stop himself from thrusting or from saying the needy, pathetic things he was saying. “Please, please, let me put it in – I need to. I need you.”

“Ben – ” Her voice was high-pitched. Her fingers scrabbled at his blankets.

Kylo didn’t want to hear that name, so he leaned further over her, grasping her chin and twisting it brutally. He’d never kissed her on the mouth before. It tasted different than the rest of her skin. Her lips were sealed together.

“Please.” He said, again, against her mouth.

Rey parted her lips, let his tongue press hungrily past them, and then – then _bit_ him.

“Ow!” Kylo made an unmanly, undignified noise. He sat up, pressing his fingers to his mouth. He tasted copper. A startled laugh erupted from his chest. “You… bit me.”

He’d thought she didn’t know how to be kissed. Maybe she never had been.

Rey rolled off of the bunk and fumbled with her clothes, red-cheeked. He expected her to rage and scream and slap him. She didn’t. She looked afraid of him, and that was worse. “No – I never – ”

Kylo hated himself suddenly. He liked shocking her, annoying her, making her angry. He didn’t want to scare her. He could all but smell her fear. It rolled off of her in waves and made him sick to his stomach. Her thoughts were sharp-edged, like brandished daggers.

He should have apologized, but any apology seemed hollow in the face of how betrayed she looked. He wished he could take back what he’d done. He wished he could watch her sleep and smell her hair. He wished he could have made her feel safe in his arms. He wished he wasn’t a _monster_.

“Come back here.” He said, weakly. It was the only thing he could think to say.

It was the wrong thing to say.

“No!” Rey almost shouted. Her fists clenched very tightly by her sides. Her mouth worked furiously. “I’m – I’m going to fix the X-wing.”

***

Kylo stood under the cold, salty stream of the fresher. It was more a form of self-flagellation than a necessity. His penis hung limply against his thigh, as if it was as ashamed of itself as he was of himself. Usually, he cleaned himself efficiently. It was too cold to bare the water for long.

He stood over the drain, shivering, for a long time. When he was blue with cold, he dressed himself in the trappings of a prisoner and climbed the ladder.

Beebee rolled around his ankles while he watched Rey work on the engine. She was laying under the belly of the X-wing, her legs protruding. When she heard his footsteps, she squeezed her thighs together.

“Do you need help?”

“I don’t need your help.” Her voice echoed against the metal body of the ship.

Kylo looked at her feet. She’d crossed her ankles, as if she was willing to do anything to keep him _out._

“I would never...” He said, haltingly. He couldn’t bring himself to say the word _rape._

Under the X-wing, a _clang._

“Rey?” He tried again.

When she didn’t respond, he did something impulsively. He was desperate. She was fixing her X-wing so that she could fly away and she might never come back. He couldn’t let that happen.

Kneeling, he grasped her ankles and pulled her out from underneath the X-wing. Her squeal of surprise died in her chest when she saw him looming over her. Her throat bobbed. She clutched her wrench like she might use it to fight him off.

Planting his arms on either side of her waist, Kylo said, choppily, “I would never hurt you, Rey.”

Rey tried to roll away; he stopped her. Her cheeks burned. “You’re scaring me.”

“I might scare you, but I’ll never hurt you.” Kylo said, stubbornly. “Please don’t leave.”

“I have to leave.” She slumped back onto the ground, as if she was resigned to the fact that she was trapped under the weight and breadth of his body.

“Will you come back?” His words came out in a nervous jumble. “I won’t – I promise I won’t touch you again.”

Rey frowned up at him. Her wrench rested on her belly. She was still gripping it. He wanted to take it from her, assure he she didn’t need it. “Then why do you want me to come back?”

“You’re the thing I’m waiting for.” Kylo told her, leaning back on his haunches over her shins. “The thing that’s keeping me alive.”

Rey made a soft, scoffing noise. He knew he was leveraging her guilt like a weapon; he didn’t care. She swiped at her cheeks with the back of the hand that wasn’t clutching her wrench.

“You can touch me.” She said, finally, in a subdued voice. “Just don’t kiss me.”

Kylo’s hands twitched by his sides. Relief bubbled up in his chest. “I can touch you?”

Rey nodded mutely. She looked almost ashamed of herself. He reached, carefully, for the wrench. He unwrapped her fingers from it. When she resisted, he met her eyes.

She exhaled, slowly, and let go of the heavy tool. When Kylo set it aside, his hands trembled. He smoothed them up her thighs and hips, resting them on her slightly concave belly. Her body seemed so narrow and fragile under his hands. He wondered if that was how she’d felt when she’d seen him, naked and emaciated.

Rey’s chest rose and fell a little quicker. Her chin reached for her sternum. She seemed surprised that she was so small under his hands. When he pushed his fingers under the hem of her tunic, she closed her eyes, perhaps expecting that he would touch her where he’d touched her before.

He found the fastenings at the top of her trousers. He waited for her to squirm away, or reach for her wrench. He waited for her fear to become palpable to him again.

It did, but it wasn’t fear of _him_ , exactly. She was a virgin. He knew it as surely as he’d known her loneliness and her dreams.

Kylo should have felt ashamed of himself, knowing that. He didn’t. He was inexplicably happy. He had tortured himself for nights on end imagining her in some other man’s arms. Sometimes that man was Dameron, sometimes he was nameless and faceless.

“Why me?” He asked, fiddling with the laces of her pants. When she didn’t answer, he unlaced them and crooked two fingers inside the fabric of them, easing them down her hips until they constricted her thighs. She didn’t raise her bottom to help him.

“I shouldn’t.” Rey was fighting him, and herself, clenching her thighs around his hand even as her breath hitched. “You’re – you’re…”

“A monster.” And he was; she was completely exposed to him, physically and in the Force, and he was taking greedily from her mind and body. He reveled in her guilt and her pleasure and her guilt _for_ the pleasure. She had been lying to herself for so long, pretending she came to him time and time again out of pity or remorse, that she’d let him touch her and see her naked breasts for _his_ sake, that she didn’t long for him when she had the whole galaxy at her fingertips.

She couldn’t lie to _him,_ not when he was behind her eyes. She wanted him, as much as it confused and disgusted her. She _hated_ herself for it.

Kylo’s fingers wedged between her clenched legs and then through her lower lips and into her cunt with a wet squelch. He twisted and strained to fit them into her. She didn’t make it easy, even if she was sopping wet. When they were buried to the knuckle, his smallest fingers, curled around themselves, brushed the nub of nerves at the top of her sex. Her pubic hair tickled him. As if she’d been tickled, too, Rey shuddered erratically. She made a half-sobbing noise, and then her thighs went limp and fell apart as she gave up the fight. Her eyes were wet with tears, as if she was ashamed that he knew her deepest, darkest secret. 

Kylo was suddenly seized with an urge to kiss her. He knew she wouldn't allow it. It would be tantamount to admitting that she was weak and wanting. Still thrusting his fingers into the sticky channel of her body, he told her, as gently as he could - far more gently than he was touching her - "Don't worry. I won't make you say it."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered putting a CW on this for dub-con, since Kylo certainly is under the impression, until the second act, that she was not a consenting party. Let me know if you think I need to. 
> 
> P.S. My personal life has somehow gotten even more stressful and sad since I last published a chapter. I'll blame that for the delay. I'll try to be more prompt next time - hopefully seeing the movie will help get the creative juices flowing.


	9. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: hate sex. Really, really hateful sex.

Rey’s mouth set in a tight, stubborn line. He knew she wouldn’t open it to wail or beg or whimper. He didn’t care. Her legs fell open, and that was all that mattered to him. But her eyes were shut. That, he didn’t want. He wanted her to look up at him. Otherwise, she might pretend that he was someone else. Someone she didn’t have to be ashamed of wanting.

Kylo wanted to smushed his mouth gracelessly against her closed lips. He always wanted what he couldn’t have, and she’d said he couldn’t kiss her. Instead, he pulled his index and middle fingers, sticky and warm, from her body and pressed them to the seam of her lips.

She twisted her head, fighting him for a moment, and then, throat bobbing, she glared at him and opened her mouth. His fingers slid in with satisfying ease, lubricated by her slickness. They didn’t catch on her dry and chapped lips.

Mesmerized, Kylo pushed them in as far as they could go. When she gagged, he withdrew, resting the pads of his digits on her lower lip. “Will you suck my cock like this?”

She opened her eyes, shocked – his tactic had worked – and tried to bite his fingertip.

Amused, and unfazed, Kylo thrust his fingers into her mouth again. Despite her bluster, she latched onto them instinctually. “You’ve never done that before, either, have you? It won’t hurt as much as if I put it inside you.”

Around his fingers, Rey made a muffled, garbled noise. When he pulled them from her mouth, she said, fiercely, “I’m not afraid of pain.”

He’d wanted her for a student, once. He’d never felt more like a master when he looked down at her, as if she was his apprentice and said, very gently, “Good.”

***

The arch of her back as he heaved her onto his hard, narrow bunk was something Kylo would never forget. He’d slung her heavily over his shoulder, her trousers still tangled around her knees and hobbling her, and carried her down the rusted ladder. Her little fists had beat his back and her ineffectual knees had pumped against his stomach, but when he’d slammed her down, her back had arched.

If she was really afraid of him, he knew, she’d curl in on herself protectively, not arch her body open.

Straddling her legs, Kylo settled the weight of his body on her knees, trapping her. He lurched forward and grasped a slim wrist in each hand, pinning it to either side of her hair.

Her hair, mussed, was sticking to her wet mouth. “Let me go.”

Kylo blew air out of his pursed lips, displacing the hair that was stuck to her scowling mouth. It was an oddly gentle impulse. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Rey glared up at him. Irrationally wanting to soothe her, Kylo let go of on of her hands, stroking her cheek. Just as soon as he did, she sunk her short, sharp nails into the tender skin on the side of his neck, raking them down to his collarbone.

Wrestling her arm back to the bunk, Kylo frowned gently down at her. “No.”

He reared up over her and unfastened his trousers. From between the folds of fabric, his cock prodded towards her. It was as flushed as her bare thighs were in the cold air. The hem his tunic caught the tip of his cock and obscured it, so he ripped it off over his head. He didn’t like to be naked – it made him feel vulnerable – but he wanted to see the look in her eyes when she saw him, _all_ of him.

Rey’s throat bobbed in a gratifying way. She seemed frozen. Only her little fingers move, clenching and unclenching in the blankets under her body.

“Take off your shirt.” Kylo told her, his voice gravelly.

After a moment of hesitation, Rey shook her head.

Sighing, as if he was disappointed with an ornery apprentice, Kylo hooked his fingers in the neckline of her white tunic. He waited, for a split second, and she nodded, almost imperceptibly. Her cheeks reddened, as if she was embarrassed or angry that he’d seen her nod.

He tore the tunic, pressing it and her vest to the sides of her body. Her nipples pebbled up. He’d fixated over those nipples and the soft swells of flesh they crowned. But her naked body was an embarrassment of riches. He couldn’t be preoccupied with her breasts when he’d felt her wet cunt. He ran his fingertip around one nipple, teasing it but not touching it, and that was enough. Her little strain towards his touch was enough. Her disappointment when he didn’t stroke or pluck was enough.

Rey made a little keening noise when he leaned over her and breathed in the sweaty scent at the crook of her neck, as if she was afraid he would bite her. Her body was shaking slightly. Only the full press of his weight stopped its vibrations.

Her eyes were as wide as a Krugga deer’s as he brushed the hair back from her face. The tenderness of his hand must have distracted her from what his other hand was doing, snaked down between their bellies. Her eyes went glassy. Even her mouth, which she’d kept stubbornly shut, went slack.

He’d dreamed of her looking at him like that – like he wasn’t a monster. Like she trusted him.

He broke her trust. He felt kind of a perverse satisfaction in it – and a very male, physical satisfaction – as he pressed the leaking, swollen head of his cock into her cunt, until he met with resistance and saw tears spring to her eyes.

Embarrassed, she turned her head side to side to hide them. They leaked out of the corners of her eyes and onto her temples. If he’d been her lover, he would have kissed them away, precariously half-inside her. Instead, her tears made him feel guilty, and that made him angry. He didn’t want to feel like a monster while he was doing this. He’d warned her it would hurt. She’d told him she wasn’t afraid.

Frustrated, he thrust forward and bottomed out inside her, heedless of her hurt. She clenched around him in pain. He almost came. He didn’t examine whether her pain was what almost made him cum. Breathing hard, he hid his face in the nest of blankets, between her cheek and her shoulder. She turned her face the other way, but it was too late. Her tears had left a wet, salty spot.

His voice sounded pathetic and breathy when he said, “This won’t take long.”

He would have felt as pathetic as he sounded if she knew any better. She’d never done this. There was no man to compare him with. And he was a man _starved_.

He didn’t pull out between thrusts so much as he kept trying to drive deeper and impossibly deeper into her body, craving the constrictive clench of it. It was unlike his fist, unlike _anything_. With every vicious thrust, he got a bit deeper, she got a bit looser, and his grunt of agonized pleasure got a bit higher-pitched. His sounds drowned out the hitches in her breath. She couldn’t control those, no matter how tightly she kept her mouth closed.

When he finally did withdraw, to hammer back in, his skin caught on her torn skin and she almost howled. He looked down, and saw his shaft was bright with red blood. It startled him. His thrusts lagged for a moment and his mouth fell wide open. He’d never had a virgin before. Intellectually, he’d known he’d hurt Rey. But nothing could have prepared him to see the blood.

She gave him a fierce look, as if she _dared_ him to apologize. Her face was wet with sweat or tears, and she’d bitten through her own lip to keep from crying out, but she was not cowed. Rearing up onto his knees, Kylo pulled out, torturously, breathing hard.

“No!” Rey hissed, clawing at his thighs. She must have sensed that he was losing his nerve, regretting the violence of their congress. He was torn. He didn’t want to make her bleed. But he was, in the most base sense, a selfish man. He wanted to cum in her. _Anywhere_ in her would do. It would better if it was somewhere that wouldn’t hurt her.

Kylo shushed her with his palm spread flat between her breasts. He shuffled higher on his body, gripping his blood-stained cock in his other hand. When he pressed the head of his cock to her cheek, he left a bloody mark. She turned her head away, and it smeared along her skin. Precum dribbled next to it.

“It won’t hurt as much.” He said, hoarsely, by way of explanation.

Instead of taking him in her mouth, Rey gritted her teeth and repeated, “I’m _not afraid_ of pain.”

As if to prove herself, or to convince herself, she pushed him onto his back and climbed clumsily on top of him. Her thighs were shaking visibly as she braced herself on his chest and rose up over him. Like a woman going stoically to her death, she grappled and fumbled with his slick member.

Kylo had an absurb urge to laugh at how nervous she was to touch it. It had been inside of her. He made a low, strangled noise. She glared at him, but then her face screwed up in pain as she slid down onto him, stopping halfway.

She blinked down at him, and still saw half of his shaft. “Ow.”

Now, Kylo did laugh, almost cruelly. Even her bared teeth couldn’t stop it. He sat up, grasped her hips, and drew her matter-of-factly down onto him, until the wiry curls at the apex of her thighs brushed his matching, darker nest of hair. As he rocked her on top of him, he marveled at how he hadn’t forgotten how to do this. It still felt so instinctual, despite his months of solitude. He pulled her harder, and her pubic bone brushed his.

“Ow – owww.” This time, the word was drawn out, almost in pleasure. She fluttered a little around him.

Harder, then. His arms burned as he moved her over him. His breath escaped through his gritted teeth in short puffs. With every squelching stroke, his abdomen got tighter and tighter.

“Kylo.” His name came out choppy. She was being rocked up and down too quickly to speak clearly. “Please, slow –” She hiccupped as he slammed into her cervix. “ – down. _Kylo_.”

Jerking forwards, Kylo bit into the web of skin between her throat and her shoulder. His stomach spasmed with perverse, uncontained excitement when he heard her call him that. That was who he was when he fucked a woman. Ben Solo would never have done that.

Flooding Rey with his cum, instead of his own hand and belly, was more primally satisfying than the first taste of real meat after days and days eating veg-meat. It was better than being clean. It was better than being warm, wrapped in a second blanket, on a cold night.

She was so much warmer.

***

Rey slept, after, exhausted by the fight she’d put up. Her face was crusty with sweat and tears and her blood and his precum. Her lashes, stuck together, flitted against the hollows under her eyes, casting shadows. Kylo rolled over and braced himself on his sore arm. With his other hand, he tucked her mussed hair behind her ear. She made a soft, snuffling noise in her sleep, and he was struck with the desire to curl close to her, like he had the night she’d slept in his bunk.

Kylo didn’t feel like he deserved that, after what he’d done to her. She hadn’t cum. He hadn’t lasted long enough to ease her past the pain of intercourse and into its pleasures.

He didn’t regret that he hadn’t made her cum. If she had, she would have what she’d come for. She wouldn’t come back. He wanted her to come back. He never wanted her to _leave_.

He was a selfish man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pssst, Kylo. You know a good way to keep a lady *cumming* back? 
> 
> Sorry for the sex pun. 
> 
> P.S. Thank you for your patience! I have been so stuck on this chapter and stuck in a lot of ways recently. I'm so suprised and pleased if you're still here.


	10. Dusk and Dawn

Rey woke up. She pretended she hadn’t. Kylo was accustomed to being alone; if he hadn’t been, he might not have been perceptive to the shift in her breathing, the slight stiffening of her previously lax muscles, the little twitch in the muscle of her cheek.

He wondered how long she would lay beside him, pretending to be asleep and whether she was biding her time, waiting for him to turn his back so she could bolt. She was a stubborn creature. But so was he. He stared, determinedly, at the rough-hewn rock above him, folding his hands over his naked chest and exhaling loudly through his nose in exasperation.

Hunched over on her side, she lay still. _Too_ still. She was unconvincingly rigid, her sharp tailbone protruding from under her skin, just under the hem of her tunic.

Kylo reached out and rubbed his thumb across that nub of bone, stretching her hot, dry skin across it. Even in the damp, chill atmosphere of Cygnus II, she was hot and dry like the desert.

“No.” Rey didn’t move, but her voice bounced off the rock walls of his bunker. Ignoring her, Kylo counted her vertebrae, starting from the bottom. When he reached them bunched hem of her tunic, he’d counted six. She seemed so fragile and breakable. He was surprised he hadn’t left bruises on her.

When his hand slid under the fabric to continue its work, Rey rolled over.

“Ben, no.” Rey said, weakly, watery. She rested her cheek on her folded hands. Her hands were a poor substitute for a pillow, but he didn’t have one. He didn’t have any luxuries, and she’d clearly seen fit to distance herself from him, rather than rest her head on his arm or chest. That made his stomach hurt, for some reason. Stringy and muscular though he was, he was still softer than rock.

Rey didn’t look angry now, or as if she was pretending to be angry when he’d unceremoniously fucked her. She had tears in her eyes and blotches on her cheeks. She looked disappointed.

She was disappointed in him. She’d had some sort of expectation, and he hadn’t met it. He wondered whether she’d fantasized about sex. Whether she’d pictured the first man she’d have sex with. If she had, she hadn’t pictured him. She hadn’t pictured blood and tears and harsh words.

Kylo couldn’t resist. It was violation, but he had already, in some sense, transgressed. In a moment, he was crashing clumsily into her mind. He was out of practice. He rarely had use for the Force on Cygnus II.

In her mind, he saw something he hadn’t expected. She hadn’t fantasized about Dameron or some other sauve, bright-eyed pilot. She hadn’t fantasized about silky sheets and candles.  She’d fantasized him, and this slab of rock and nest of blankets. She’d pictured every rivulet of sweat on his body, every grain of dust and dirt he couldn’t stand the cold water long enough to scrub off. She pictured his callouses on her skin, his stale breath, his jerky, unpracticed movements. All that, and she had fantasized about him worshipping her as if she was the center of his universe, not using and then discarding her.

“Kylo!” Rey had reverted to calling him _Kylo_. Her mouth screwed up around the two syllables as if they pained her. Her cheeks had flared red as if she was embarrassed to be revealed as anything but a martyr in this. “Stop.”

Kylo blinked at her. She had thrown him from her mind, panicked. He could feel her consciousness quiver and flex, as if preparing to sustain a blow. She thought he was going to be rough and selfish.

 He _had_ been rough and selfish, rifling through her mind. He wouldn’t be in this.  Suddenly, he wanted to give her everything she’d come for, even if it meant that she never came back, longing for more.

“ _No_!” Rey tried to resist as he yanked her back onto the bed, one arm around her waist, the other, pinning her trashing arms to her sides. She thrashed her legs, instead, and bit into the web of muscle between her neck and his shoulder. It hurt. She must have felt, rather than heard, the responsive growl of pain he made.

Falling back onto the bed, with her atop him, Kylo dug his nails into her backside and pulled her up her body. She was astride his hips, then his belly, then his chest. The expression on her face changed from anger intrigue as the apex of her thighs drew further from his cock and closer to his chin. Her repetitive _no, no, no_ died on her lips in a little puff.

She stared down at him, confused. Even in her private fantasies, she hadn’t contemplated this – being on top of him, in a position to dominate, not to be dominated.

There was nothing submissive about Kylo, though, when he dragged her by her hips higher, higher, until his chin was notched between her slim thighs. She squeezed them, reflexively, and squished his cheeks. He thought he must look silly, but she didn’t laugh.

“What are you doing?” She asked him, finally.

Kylo craned his neck forwards, holding her in place with a hand on each bare buttock, and brushed his nose through the messy, ruined folds of her sex. He’d ruined them. He’d soothe them now. He’d worship her, just like she imagined. Even if she hadn’t imagined it like this.

His nose was long enough to trace from her clit to her cunt even though she resisted. When she stopped resisting, he tugged her forward and re-traced that same path with his flat of his tongue. He kept his eyes open. The shiver than convulsed her made even the scant amount of fat on her body jiggle slightly. She bit her lip, as if considering whether she ought to be bold, and then canted her hips forward, smothering him in her sex.

Kylo could have chosen not to mince words. She never did. She told him he smelled, or that he was a monster, or, her particular favorite, a nerfherder. He could have been just as brutally honest and told her she tasted like coppery blood and stale cum. He could have told her she was suffocating him.

He opened his mouth to say those cruel things, and found his mouth full of her. Their proximity made him sloppy. He hadn’t done this before. It was the _only_ thing he hadn’t done. He was breathing out through his nose, short of breath and trying to keep up with the subtle gyrations of her hips, when Rey grasped his hair.

His eyes flew to hers. She looked flush with victory. She adjusted him, ever so slightly, so that he wasn’t licking the narrow, sore passage of her cunt, but instead, the hidden little nub above it. In a low, slow hiss, she said a syllable she’d never said before – certainly not when he’d had _her_ flat on her back.  “ _Yes_.”

Encouraged, Kylo latched on and sucked. He liked that – the wet, rhythmic tug of lips around his cock – so why wouldn’t she? He’d never stopped to consider what a woman would like before.

He didn’t have to read her mind to know she did like it. She threw her head back, panting. Lacking oxygen, Kylo dug his nails into her lower back, out of habit. Pain helped him focus. It didn’t seem to bother her. She kept rolling her pelvis against him, her mouth hanging open and glistening.

When he smoothed one hand over her backside and then between the soft, muscular cheeks of it, teasing the little pucker there in counterpoint to the tempo of his mouth on her sex, she made a little inhuman noise. He poked his finger in, emboldened. As her back arched in response, the inhuman noise became a recognizable noise – his name. “ _Kylo.”_

She drew out the last syllable, her face scrunching up. Just as abruptly, she hunched over herself, her stomach heaving, and huffed, “Ben.”

Ben stretched out his neck, easing his slick face back from between her legs. The back of his skull collided with the stone of his makeshift bunk with a crack. He winced. He wondered if he had her blood on his face now, too, just as she did. The blood he’d smeared onto her cheek had dried there like war paint.

Rey stared down at him, breathing hard. If he did have blood on his face, she made no move to clean it off with her fingers or mouth. She sat, slowly, back onto his belly.

After a long moment, Ben raised his arm, intending to use the back of his hand to wipe his face. At the last minute, he thought better of it. He wanted to make her taste. Reading up, he brought himself level with her as she fell back against his thighs. They looked at each other for a long moment, and then he kissed her.

Her mouth opened after a moment, and he felt her suck in a deep breath of _his_ breath. He kissed her more boyishly and desperately than he meant to. There was nothing dominant about his kiss. It was a pathetic entreaty. _Come back to me. Stay with me. Touch me. Love me –_

When he drew away, breathing hard through his nose, she said, raggedly, “I told you not to kiss me.”

Kylo felt a stone settle in his belly. After what – what they’d done together, what he’d _done_ for her – it had felt so intimate. He’d thought he had implicit permission. He thought they were on equal footing, now, like lovers, not enemies who fucked each other to make each other bleed. He thought –

“I told you not to call me Ben.” He said, lashing out to ease the sting of rejection.

***

Rey came back, two cycles later. She was exactly on time. Kylo heard the roar of her X-wing. It jolted him from the monotony of self-pity and tinkering with BB-8’s selenium drive – with the droid’s permission, of course.

He’d been sure she wouldn’t come back, sure he held little intrigue for her now. She’d had his body completely, and what’s worse, she’d had his soul. She’d found out that he wasn’t a brute who took and took and never wanted to give. She’d realized he needed something besides sex and violence. He needed _affection._ He needed to please her. She’d seen his weakness.

Kylo’s boots clanged heavily on his rusty metal ladder. He scaled it in a hurry, fumbling and nearly falling. Outside, atop the rock spire, Rey was perched on the lip of the duracrete landing pad. She was looking out at the flock of raptor birds circling in great lazy swoops. She didn’t turn around when he approached, though she must have heard him. His heartbeat alone was loud. He wiped his hands on his pants, nervously.

“You came back.”

“You stink.” Rey said, without turning around. “I should have brought you some more soap.”

There was a smile in her voice that he could hear. His legs trembled with relief. Nothing had changed between them. He hadn’t ruined anything.

Stink be damned, he sat down, wobbly-kneed, next to her. He folded his arms over his knees and thought of all the other panoramas she could admire – Theed, Coruscant, Canto Bight. Each of them would be more different than the next.

It was the middle of the day on Cygnus II, but the sky was, as it ever was, purple and hazy, low-slung over the craggy landscape and floodplains. Everything was cast in a dull, heavy light. The air even felt heavy with mist and the promise of darkness.

“It’s always dusk here.” Kylo told her, lamely. He felt they’d been sitting in silence for too long. They’d never been adept at talking to each other. They were better at doing other things to each other. But he wasn’t sure he was allowed to do those things. He wasn’t even sure he was allowed to touch her.

Rey’s lips twitched. For a long time, she didn’t say anything. Then, awkwardly, she leaned over – her arms still wrapped protectively around herself – and rested her cheek on his bicep. He breath tickled his skin through the fabric of his shirt when she spoke. “I think it’s always dawn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where to start? It has been a rough month for me. I didn't have any will to write this chapter, even though I've had it plotted out as the grand finale of this trash-heap since my first outline. Things have started getting a bit better, so I took a stab at writing it and I have to tell you - I am glad I did. It felt good. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your patience. I can't promise I'm not going to take a sabbatical, but feel free to leave prompts or story ideas. I'm particularly interested in shorter stories - hopefully, those will get the juices flowing without bogging me down. 
> 
> This isn't the first story that I have ended without tying up all the loose ends. It was never intended to be a story in which Kylo gets redeemed and escapes his exile and they live happily ever after. However, I hope the ending answered all of the questions you have been asking yourself along the way. In particular, I will note that a lot of people were asking what their history was -  
> I had envisioned an alliance, mutual attraction, and sexual tension, before (in Kylo's mind) Rey's betrayal. So when TLJ came out, I decided that what happened in canon would work just fine, with the tweak that their alliance led to Kylo's capture.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are worth five portions... or, in Kylo's case... soap.


End file.
